


Three Bandits.

by steeleye



Series: 1812 World. [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Reality, Gen, crossover fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2344490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of strange and horrific events force Buffy, Willow and Cordelia to turn to a life of crime. Some violence, a little sex and digs at religion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Three Bandits.

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire slayer or anything else you might recognise in this fic. I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** Ideas stolen from; Star Trek the Original Series and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Other well known characters from fiction may turn up at various points in the story

 **Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation:** Written in glorious English-English. Sort of American idioms are used throughout this fic.

 **Timeline:** Direct sequel to 'The Raid on Valle del Sol'.

 **Words:** Ten Chapters of at least 3000 words.

 **Warnings:** Some light, violence, sex and religion bashing.

 **Summary:** A series of strange and horrific events force Buffy, Willow and Cordelia to turn to a life of crime.

0=0=0=0

**Valle del Sol, September, 1950.**

Standing in the deserted corridor Willow Rosenberg wondered why she was dreaming of being at school, her old school too, the one the British had blown up the previous November. Looking up and down the perfectly normal corridor with it rows of lockers and polished floor she asked herself why her subconscious had brought her here. It was puzzling; dream-Willow frowned as she started to walk towards where she knew her old classroom should be.

Willow had always been one of those people who knew when she was in a dream and could control what went on around her. If she tried really hard and concentrated before she went to sleep she’d discovered that she could influence what she dreamed about. But this was weird, why dream about her old school? She liked school and she was looking forward to starting at the new high school, built in record time to replace the one destroyed by the Commandos. Mystified she walked alone along the empty corridors; to hear the papers or the radio go on you’d think the British were out to wreck everyone’s education or they’d been trying to wipe out Valle del Sol’s teenagers.

Smiling ruefully to herself Willow wonder why, if the British were that evil, why had they been so careful about making sure the school was empty before they blew it up? No one appeared to ask themselves that question. Willow and Buffy knew the real answer; the British had wanted to close the Hellgate (or as the British called it ‘the anomaly’) under the school. Something that the Mexican authorities had failed to do for some reason; and why had they built a school on top of something they believed led straight to hell?

“Willow.”

Turning quickly Willow saw the shadow of someone…or something disappear down a side corridor.

“Who’s there?” pausing for a moment, Willow started to follow whatever it was that’d called to her. “If I had any sense,” she told herself, “I’d pinch myself and wake up, but ‘no’, I have to find out what I’m trying to tell myself.”

“Willow!”

Again she turned to confront whatever was teasing her and once again there was nothing but a fleeting shadow to be seen.

“Oh come on!” Willow rested her hands on her hips and looked down the corridor, “Lets get on with this, I’m not in the mood to go chasing up and down corridors just to give myself some cryptic warning at the end of it all.”

Of course there was no answer, she’d not really expected there’d be one but it didn’t hurt to try. Sighing she turned and walked straight into something tall, dark and definitely male, she looked up into the face of the apparition and gasped.

“Xander!” her hand flew to her mouth as she took a step away from her dead childhood friend.

Xander Harris had been her best friend since…since forever. He’d been killed, well, vaporised really, by a British shell nearly a year ago now. Willow had been there, she’d seen it happen; one second Xander had been there the next…the next he’d been a red mist that had clung to her clothes and skin. She’d been to his funeral and everything, not that the casket held much of anything other than a few small pieces of bone and some sand bags. 

“Hi Willow,” dead Xander smiled down at her; he was dressed in his old militia cadet uniform and didn’t look in the slightest bit blown up.

“H-Hi X-Xander,” Willow wasn’t sure what you said to a dead person in your dream that didn’t sound lame, “y-you look w-well?”

“Hey yeah,” Xander smiled and rolled his shoulders, “not bad for a dead guy!”

“Yeah,” agreed Willow, she took a step towards her dead friend and touched his chest, she could feel him, it was almost as if he was real. “Hey, have you been totally working out?”

“No,”Xander grinned down at Willow as he took her hand in his own, “I’m a sorta ‘ideal Xander’, everybody’s like this up here.”

“Are you in heaven?” Willow wrapped her other hand around Xander’s as she stared up into his warm brown eyes.

“‘S’pose I must be,” Xander stepped around beside Willow and slipped his hand around her waist, they started to walk along the corridor towards the Principal’s office, “look Will I’ve not got much time. You see I’ve been allowed to come back so I can tell you something…”

“You have?” Willow was mesmerised by Xander’s eyes as they seemed to bore their way right into her soul, “W-what do you want to tell me?”

“I loved you Willow,” Xander admitted with a sigh, “I’ve always loved you; that thing I had about Buffy…well that was all a big mistake. It was always you and I never realised it until right at the end when it was too late to do anything about it.”

Sniffing quietly Willow looked up into Xander’s handsome face and tried to ignore the alarm bells that were ringing at the back of her mind.

“Well,” Willow breathed deeply, Xander’s scent seemed to fill her mind to the exclusion of everything else, “there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“Actually,” Xander’s smile got wider as they stopped outside a door, reaching across her he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Gasping with surprise, Willow noted that the sign on the door said ‘Principal’s Office’, but the few times she’d ever been in there in real life it had never looked like this!

0=0=0=0

“HMMMMM!” mumbled Willow as Xander’s lips pressed down on hers.

He pushed her backwards across the principal’s office towards the big double bed that stood where Principal Snyder had once had his desk. Xander’s hand caressed Willow's breast as her legs caught on the mattress and they tumbled onto the bed, she managed to free her lips from Xander’s for a moment.

“NO!” Willow cried desperately, “Xander stop! Think what you’re doing!?”

“I am thinking,” he smiled down at her as his hand reached down and started to pull up the hem of her skirt, “I should have done this when I was alive…admit it, its what you always wanted too.”

“Yeah, well,” Willow had to admit that she’d often fantasised about Xander and herself but now; now he was dead! “And Xander telling a girl that you should have done something when you were alive is way icky, hmmmm!”

Xander’s mouth covered hers and stifled anything else she had to say, his right hand was making rapid progress up her inner thigh; Willow tried to cross her legs but found too late that Xander had already put one of his legs between hers. His other hand held her by the back of her head so she couldn’t turn her face away from his.

Oh god no, she cried out in her head; Xander started to stroke her through her panties. She felt herself start to squirm under his touch as his fingers began to probe between her legs. Pushing at his shoulders weakly she felt his fingers inside her panties and his tongue deep in her mouth. Moaning Willow found herself responding to his touch. Her hips, seemingly of their own accord, pushed up to meet his fingers; she felt her panties being slowly pulled aside, and she knew she wanted him inside her like she’d never wanted anything before in her life.

“Yes!” Willow gasped breathlessly into his ear as Xander buried his face in her hair and started to nibble on her ear lobe, his free hand moved from her neck to support his weight as he lay on top of her. Feeling something hot and hard against her inner thigh, Willow gasped with anticipation… 

Just then the school bell rang and Xander looked up in surprise as Willow cried out in alarm. The next thing she knew she was sitting up in bed with her alarm clock ringing on her bedside table. Reaching out she silenced the bell, looking down at herself she found she’d kicked the bed clothes off her bed and her nightdress was up around her hips.

“Oh my!” she gasped as she looked around her bedroom half expecting to see Xander hiding in the corner or something.

“Willow,” her mother’s voice came to her through her bedroom door, “are you awake?”

“Yes Mama,” Willow quickly pulled her nightdress down and swung her legs out of bed, “I’m getting up now.”

“Good,” called her mother, her voice receding as she headed for the kitchen, “if you hurry up I’ll drive you to school.”

“Thanks Mama,” Willow stood up and headed for the door, “I’ll be down soon.”

0=0=0=0

Brushing her teeth Willow couldn’t help reflecting on the dream she’d just had, she’d had ‘erotic’ dreams before but nothing so vivid…so... Words failed her for a moment and she wondered if her subconscious was actually trying to tell her something. Or maybe it was just trying to resolve some issues that she didn’t realise she’d got. Willow had thought she’d got over Xander’s death, she’d mourned his loss, and she’d cried buckets at his funeral. But that was nearly a year ago, she’d moved on (or thought she had), she’d always love Xander but he was dead and she was alive, she had to get on with her life. 

Looking at herself in the mirror she resolved to check out the new school library and see if there were any books on the meaning of dreams. If it had just been a wet dream, maybe she should go out with boys more often; maybe even see that Levi guy her mother was always trying to get her to go out with. Perhaps it was her mind’s way of telling her that Xander wasn’t some sort of paragon and was warning her not to put him on a pedestal…not that she ever had. Frowning in frustration Willow dressed and went into the kitchen and kissed her mother on the cheek as she made scrambled eggs for their breakfast.

“Excited about going back to school?” Willow’s mother asked as she stirred the eggs.

“It’s hardly back to school, Mama,” Willow poured herself a cup of tea; “you make it sound like I’ve not been since the British blew up the old school.”

“Oh you know what I mean,” her mother placed a plate of scrambled eggs on toast in front of her daughter before sitting down herself, the two ate in silence for a minute or two.

After the destruction of the old High School, Willow and her classmates had finished out their year in an old school and a collection of tents and huts. The buildings had been scheduled for demolition and had been rapidly repaired so the children had somewhere to do their lessons. The Imperial authorities took education seriously, they knew that if Mexico was going to be a power in the world they’d need skilled, educated people. Nowadays just having the biggest and best battleships didn’t matter anymore. Having people who could design, build and fly jet aircraft did.

Today was the first day of Willow’s last year at school, she was a ‘Senior’ and what happened this year could shape what she did for the rest of her life. If she failed (something that was so unlikely that she didn’t even consider it) she’d probably just get married in a year or twos time. If she passed all her exams she could look forward to something of a career before getting married; then after she’d brought up her children she could go back to work just like her mother had done.

Thinking of her mother’s career made her think of her father who had disappeared on that November day a year ago. They’d never found his body, and the British claimed he wasn’t a prisoner, even the Red Cross admitted they’d not been able to find him. Willow was ashamed to admit that her mother and herself here actually better off financially without him than when he’d been alive. Her mother had got a good management job at the university where her father had worked. The insurance company had paid out her father’s life insurance without any argument. The government had even paid her mother a pension as her husband had died when in the employment of the Science Ministry.

They’d sold their old house and moved to a smaller bungalow in a nice part of town; they even had a car and a Negro maid who did the housework now that Senora Rosenberg worked fulltime. Mary, the maid, had escaped from the United States and made her way through the Indian Territories and into Texas; eventually she’d found her way to California. There weren’t many blacks in the Mexican Empire, outside of Cuba, so to have a coloured maid was something of a status symbol, plus Mary was a nice woman and a hard worker.

“Where are you going tonight?” Willow’s mother asked as she sipped her tea.

“I thought I’d go around to Buffy’s place,” Willow finished up eating and put her plate in the sink.

“Oh good,” her mother smiled she approved of Buffy.

Sheila Rosenberg thought her daughter worked too hard at her school work, and she liked it when she went around to visit Buffy and her little sister Dawn. Buffy Summers’ was such a lively fun loving girl, just the right influence to stop her daughter from being too much of a bookworm. Men didn’t like their wives to be too clever, and if Willow wasn’t careful she’d scare off any prospective suitors with all the stuff she filled her head with. Sheila sighed and smiled across the table at her daughter; of course if she’d not filled her own head with the best education she could get she wouldn’t have the job she had now, then there would they be?

“Come on,” Sheila stood up and looked at her watch, “if you’re coming you better get your things.”

“Right,” Willow put down her cup and stood up she left everything on the table knowing that Mary would clear up, “I’ll just get my books.”

0=0=0=0

“HI BUFFY!” Willow waved to her friend as Buffy cycled up to the front of the new school; she’d been waiting for twenty minutes for her friend to arrive after her mother had dropped her off. Locking her bike into the bike frame, Buffy skipped over to her Willow and kissed her on the cheek.

“Oh thank god you’re here Will,” the short, blonde girl gasped placing her hand on her throat, “I totally hate these first days at a new school. I really get nervous and sweaty and…”

“What you?” Willow laughed as she put her arm through Buffy’s and they walked towards the main entrance. “You? The big brave La Asesina de Demonios,” she said the last quietly so no one would hear, “frightened of a school?”

“Hey look,” Buffy replied defensively, “its okay for you, all big with the books and learning…me? I’d much rather face a ‘vore or two or maybe the odd dimension monster.”

Frowning a little Willow looked at her friend; she’d noticed that Buffy had been using the more scientific names that the British used for monsters, rather than the tradition terms used in the empire. Whatever, she thought, what did it matter what the creatures were called, Buffy still killed them like she always did. Anyway that could wait until tonight, in the meantime they had a new school to explore, Willow couldn’t wait to get into the library and see what new books there were, plus look for anything on dreams. Buffy would come with her of course, but she’d be more interested in the boys and whether they were vampires or monsters in disguise

0=0=0=0

Across the street from the new Valle del Sol High School sat a nondescript grey van parked in the shade of a tree. In the front seat sat two women; they were both in their late twenties, they wore black traditional nun’s habits. The woman on the seat nearest the school lowered her binoculars.

“Is that the little whore?” asked her companion.

“Yes,” confirmed the other woman who’s been looking through the pile of surveillance photographs on her lamp, “that’s Buffy Summers, the so called Asesina de Demonios.”

“And the redhead with her?” the first woman watched through her binoculars again as the two teenage girls entered the school building.

“That’ll be Willow Rosenberg, Summers’ best friend.”

The woman with the binoculars almost spat with disgust, not only did the little whore sleep with vampires but she consorted with a Jewess’ as well. Was there no end to her sins? Well yes there would be, as soon as the order came down from the Cardinal, Buffy Summers would be sent for judgement and all her sins would be punished in the eternal fires of hell.

“Watch out,” whispered the woman with the photographs, “police!” 

Hurriedly she cleared away the photos as her companion hid the binoculars under the dashboard. Moments later a middle aged traffic cop tapped on the driver’s side window. Sister Deifilia rolled down her window and smiled at the cop. The policeman bent down to see into the driving compartment and touched the peak of his cap with his right hand in salute.

“Can I help you Sisters?” he asked smiling at the two nuns.

“Oh thank you officer,” cried Sister Deifilia in mock relief, “I’m afraid we’re a little lost!”

The cop smiled and started to explain where the nuns had taken the wrong turn and how to get to where they were going. Saluting again he stopped the traffic to allow the nuns to get on their way secure in the knowledge that all was well.

0=0=0=0

Standing in the main entrance of the school Willow drew in a deep breath through her nose; she savoured the smell of fresh paint, new furniture and new books.

“Hey come on,” Buffy nudged her friend in the ribs with her elbow, “stop sniffing the place we’ve got to find our ‘Home Room’, whatever that is.”

“Oh Buffy,” Willow looked down at her shorter friend, “you should totally know where it is, you came to the familiarisation evening, I know I was like with you.”

“I know,” Buffy grinned as they walked along the corridor together, “but I had to fight some monsters straight after and it all sorta got chased out my head…sorry.”

Willow gave her friend a thin lipped smile.

“Look,” pleaded Buffy, “as soon as we’re settled in and I’ve got over my ‘new school fear’ I’ll be properly attentive, just you watch.”

“Yeah,” agreed Willow, “I hope you are, this year decides whether you can get into a college or not.”

“I won’t be going,” Buffy admitted sadly, she’d been looking forward to leaving school and going to college.

“What!?” Willow stopped in the middle of the corridor causing several students to take evasive action, “What do you mean you won’t be going to college?”

“Dawn,” Buffy replied referring to her younger sister, “now Mama and Papa are dead I’ll have to look after her.”

“Oh no,” sighed Willow she’d forgotten about Dawn, “maybe Padre Rupert can do something.”

“Yeah maybe,” Buffy had already spoken to her confessor about her little sister and he’d promised to see what he could do.

After all she was the Asesina de Demonios and she couldn’t be expected to fight evil and look after her younger sister all by herself. It was about time the Congregación Sagrada Suprema de la Oficina Santa stepped up and took some of the weight from her shoulders before it killed her.

“Here we are,” Willow pointed to another freshly painted door that led to a freshly painted classroom, “Home Room.”

“Yeah,” Buffy didn’t sound as enthusiastic as her friend, “Okay let’s do it.”

Linking their arms the two girls marched into their new classroom.

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

“Come in,” Padre Rupert called at the sound of the knock on his door; looking up he scrambled to his feet when he saw who his visitor was.

“Monsignor!” he gasped in surprise as Cardinal Higgins stood in the doorway.

“God be with you,” smiled Higgins as he held out his hand to Padre Rupert.

Kissing the Cardinal’s ring Father Rupert offered the Cardinal a seat. There wasn’t much room in his small office next to the school library where he worked. Higgins smiled his thanks and folded his long thin frame into the visitor’s chair across the desk from where Father Rupert stood nervously.

“I-I’m honoured of course,” began Rupert as he retook his seat, “but why are you, the, as it were, second in command of the Congregación Sagrada Suprema de la Oficina Santa, in Mexico, here?”

The balding middle aged priest fidgeted and polished his glasses nervously, he could in fact think of several reasons why Cardinal Higgins (who’s unofficial title was ‘The Fang of God’) was here, none of them good.

“Only God is in command,” smiled the Cardinal, “I am but His humble servant.”

“Of course,” Father Rupert gave a weak smile as he admitted the point.

“But to answer your question, Padre,” again the Cardinal smiled showing strong white teeth; Rupert felt like a very small fish looking into the mouth of a very large shark. “I’ve come to see how your Asesina de Demonios is getting on.”

A loaded question indeed, thought the priest.

“She’s doing very well, thank-you for asking,” Rupert tried a smile of his own but it died on his lips in the face of the Cardinal’s cold, blue eyes.

“So there has been no repetition of the unfortunate incident with the vampire?” the Cardinal steepled his fingers and watched the older priest carefully.

Feeling like a deer caught in the headlights of a hunters truck, Rupert laughed weakly.

“Of course not Monsignor,” Rupert stopped trying to laugh it off when he noticed Higgins wasn’t smiling anymore, “the entire incident was blown up out of all proportion. There is no evidence that Señorita Buffy ever had…” Rupert hesitated choosing his words carefully, “...relations with the demon…she just showed poor judgement and was naive enough to believe the bloodsucker’s story.”

“You are sure?” the Cardinal watched the older priest closely.

“I am sure, Monsignor,” Rupert tried to match the Cardinal’s stare, but looked away after only a few seconds. “She confessed everything to me under the seal of the confessional,” hopefully that would stop the Cardinal from enquiring too deeply into what Buffy had actually said. “She never had sexual relations with the demon and she fully admits to being foolish in believing him. She assured me that nothing like that would happen again and she did her penance, while not willingly, then honestly and diligently.” 

“Good, good,” nodded the Cardinal over the tops of his fingers, “and her stay with our British friends?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean Monsignor,” Rupert prevaricated while he tried to think of what the Cardinal really wanted to know. “It was no fault of Buffy’s that the British Nightwatch hunter took her prisoner. From the witness statements the Nightwatch operative was an older more experienced woman, backed up by her own team of commandos who were fully equipped with modern weapons. Unless you think that Señorita Buffy should have fought until she was killed I don’t see what else she could have done.”

“Ah,” breathed Higgins, “now there’s the rub. There are some who say that she should not have allowed herself to be captured, that she should have sacrificed herself rather than be taken…”

“These would be the same people who were ‘questioning’ the British girl in Mexico City,” interrupted Rupert angrily.

“Indeed, indeed,” admitted Higgins softly.

It had been annoying but that was life, thought the Cardinal. They had been on the verge of breaking the British girl when they had to let her go in exchange for Winters. The British had not been pleased when they had seen what had happened to their hunter; their Nightwatch organisation had let it be known that any of the Congregación, found in British or Commonwealth territory, would be arrested. Of course it would all pass and things would go back to normal eventually but until then it made things ‘awkward’.

“No,” continued Higgins after a moment, “I’m more disturbed by the reports I’ve heard that she has become overly influenced by the Nightwatch explanation for the things we fight.”

“You mean,” Rupert tried to hide the amusement he felt deep inside, “that the vampires and monsters aren’t sent by Satan and are really creatures from other dimensions or even other worlds?”

“Correct,” nodded Higgins.

“Ha! Absurd!” this time Rupert did laugh out loud, but not for the reason that the Monsignor might suspect. “I can assure you that Señorita Buffy was totally unconvinced by the Nightwatch’s blasphemous theories and is fully in agreement with Congregación dogma!”

Staring across his desk at Cardinal Higgins, Rupert wondered how the good Cardinal explained that Holy Water just got a vampire damp and annoyed. For the love of God, he cried in the privacy of his own mind, didn’t he know the damned fiends used crosses as fire wood? Surely the man knew that the things they fought weren’t sent by any infernal agency. The Hellgates didn’t lead to hell, but went somewhere else, Satan didn’t send these things but he certainly used them for his own ends.

“If you are sure?” the smile returned to the Cardinals face, Father Rupert thought it might even be genuine.

“I am sure,” Rupert replied as emphatically as he could, “Buffy maybe young and a little foolish at times, but you cannot doubt her bravery or honesty.”

“Good,” the Cardinal nodded his head as he smiled, “now that is settled let me ask you; how are you finding this wonderful new school?”

The two churchmen spoke for another five or ten minutes until the Cardinal made his excuses and left for another appointment. Rupert walked the Monsignor to the main entrance and watched him get into his car and felt relieved. The Cardinal had seemed to believe his assessment of his young Asesina so now, hopefully, Buffy and himself could get back to fighting the forces of darkness without having to look over their shoulders every five minutes to see what their own people were doing.

0=0=0=0

Climbing into the back seat of his official car Cardinal Higgins made himself comfortable before telling his driver to proceed to his next appointment. Sitting back in his seat he turned to the woman sitting beside him.

“Ah, Sister Deifilia,” the Cardinal frowned sadly, “I’m afraid it is how I suspected.”

The Cardinal shook his head slowly giving every impression of being truly sorry for what he was about to say.

“I’m sorry to say that both the Asesina and her confessor have been irrevocably lost to Satan.”

Nodding her head slowly Sister Deifilia fiddled with her rosary beads.

“When?” she asked simply.

“I’ll have to get final authorisation from Mexico City,” sighed Higgins, “but sometime in the next day or two…no more than a week.”

“Such is the will of God,” sighed Deifilia, “I’ll make sure my Sisters are in position by the time you get me the warrant.” 

“Good,” Higgins nodded, “I knew I could rely on you Sister.”

0=0=0=0

Sitting on the grass of the sports field Buffy and Willow watched the school’s senior football team at practice. It was lunch time and both girls had brought picnic lunches; the weather was much too nice to be stuck inside the school canteen, however new and modern it looked.

“HEY REF!” Buffy pointed at two players struggling to disentangle their legs, “FOUL!” she shouted.

“I didn’t know you understood football,” Willow looked at her friend as she continued to gesture at the players on the field.

“I don’t,” Buffy stopped pointing and grinned, “I think it’s traditional for spectators to shout things like ‘foul’ and such like.”

The two girls sat in silence for a moment or two as the boys kicked the ball around in the warm sunshine.

“Buffy,” Willow began hesitantly, she’d wanted to bring up the subject of her dream all day and this was the first real chance that she’d had. “Do you ever dream about boys?”

“Like, totally,” Buffy replied matter-of-factly, “all the time, why?”

“You do!?!?” Willow didn’t know whether to feel relieved or shocked, “You mean with all the kissing and the touching and the other stuff?”

“The other stuff?” Buffy who up until a few seconds ago had only been giving her friend half her attention now gave it all. “The other stuff,” she repeated with a grin, “what ‘other stuff’?”

“Nothing!” Willow turned away and studied the football match, “No other stuff.”

“Come on Willow, spill!” Buffy was sitting up on her knees grinning like the Cheshire cat at her friend, “There’s kissing and touching and the phrase ‘other stuff’ would suggest that you went further than kissing and touching.”

“Okay,” Willow sighed miserably, she was beginning to regret telling Buffy about anything, “but you’ve got to promises not to tell anyone…not even that creepy priest of yours.”

“Rupert isn’t creepy,” replied Buffy defensively, “so stop trying to change the subject and totally tell me everything with like footnotes and all!” 

“I had a dream last night,” Willow admitted, “and it was very…umm…vivid; and we totally went so much further than like kissing and touching.”

“You mean you totally went,” Buffy could hardly believe her ears and she looked at her friend with new respect, “all the way?”

“Uh-huh,” nodded Willow miserably, “but it was just a dream, right?”

“Way to go Willow!” cheered Buffy, “Was it anyone I know?”

“Xander.”

“Xander?” Buffy made a face, “That’s a bit icky making out with a dead boy, but…”

“Hey you can talk,” snapped Willow, “you totally made out with fang-boy and that’s as dead as makes no odds!”

The two girls looked away from each other for a moment; a raw nerve had been touched.

“Sorry,” Willow said quietly, “I didn’t mean to…”

“Its okay,” Buffy reassured her friend, “so, you made out with Xander? Its not surprising, you two were real close.”

“Yeah I know, but…” Willow studied the football field for a moment, “...but you’re right it did seem ‘icky’, he was too real not like a dream at all almost as if he was actually there.”

“Hey,” Buffy rested her hand on Willow’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze, “it’s all perfectly normal. Look,” she took Willow’s hand in both of hers, “it’s all totally normal for girls our age, what with the hormones an’all. It’s just your mind telling you to get yourself a boyfriend or deal with it yourself…”

“Buffy!” Willow’s face was a picture of surprise and shock, “When did you learn about that sorta…stuff!”

“When I was being held hostage up in British Columbia,” replied Buffy airily, “one of their Nightwatch people had a long talk with me about my sexuality and how to deal with it…did you know girls like me have a totally higher libido than normal girls?”

“NO!” Willow snatched her hand away from Buffy’s as if she might catch something; she wasn’t quite sure what a ‘libido’ was but it sounded rude, “And I don’t think I want to!”

“Oh!” Buffy sounded a little disappointed, “Anyway, it’s probably just a little natural sexual frustration plus you missing your life long friend, you’ll get over it.”

“You think?” Now she’d got over the boldness of what her friend had said it did seem to make some sort of sense. “So you think I should get myself a boyfriend and it’ll all go away?”

“Yeah,” Buffy nodded her head firmly, “or do the other,” seeing the look of shock on her friends face again she added, “or not, it’s up to you.”

“Well if you’re right,” Willow smiled at her friend again, “I’m still not going out with that Levi guy Mama wants me to see.”

“Why not?” giggled Buffy, “He’s not so bad.”

“He’s ten years older than me,” squeaked Willow, “and he’s fat and a dentist.”

“What’s wrong with dentists?” Buffy demanded as she laughed at the look of disgust on her friends face, “Free dental care for the rest of your life,” she pointed out.

“Would you go out with him?” knowing she’d hit home Willow nodded her head in self congratulation.

“No,” admitted Buffy, “even with my high libido.”

“Yeah,” Willow frowned for a minute, “okay, what’s a ‘high libido’ then?”

0=0=0=0

Walking along the dimly lit alley later that night Buffy heard the vampire’s stealthy footfall quite plainly. She was totally unsurprised when the creature wrapped his arm around her neck and tried to drag her off into the shadows. Pulling down on the bloodsucker’s wrist and pushing up on his elbow, Buffy broke the vampire’s hold and soon had him in an arm lock.

“Don’t you people ever think?” she asked as she hit the vampire’s elbow with the flat of her hand; she felt the joint break and heard the creature’s yelp of pain. “Are you all congenitally stupid or something?” 

Sweeping the vampire’s feet from under him with her own foot, Buffy watched as the bloodsucker fell to his knees giving another cry of pain.

“Don’t you think it's odd that a girl would be walking around the warehouse district,” she shifted her grip and took his head in both her hands, “all alone late at night?”

Twisting his head savagely from left to right she heard his neck break, the vampire collapsed in a heap at her feet.

“It would be so much easier,” Buffy stood for a moment with her hands on her hips looking down at the vampire’s body, “if you did turn to ash like it says in all the story books.”

Turning away from the body, Buffy walked behind a dumpster and retrieved a can of petrol. Dowsing the vampire’s corpse liberally with fuel she stood well back and struck a match. Throwing the lighted match at the creature she watched as he did a dog impression.

“WOOF!” went the petrol as it ignited, luckily vampire’s burnt more easily than a real person would and left little more than a pile of ash when the fire had finished its work.

Standing back to watch the blaze Buffy couldn’t help comparing her situation with that of the girls from Nightwatch. Of course _they_ were part of the law enforcement/security establishment in the Commonwealth, they had badges and guns and backup. They didn’t have to sneak around late at night in case someone saw them at work…and from what she’d been able to find out, they were also very well paid for risking their lives.

The fire was flickering out now, so Buffy discarded the petrol can in a dumpster and walked off heading for home. When she got back she’d walk Willow home; she’d come around to tutor Dawn with her school work. Then when she’d gotten home for the second time maybe she’d find a little time for herself before she had to go to bed. 

As she walked Buffy found herself wondering about her little sister. Ever since their parents had been killed Dawn had been burying herself in her school work. It was nice that she was getting good grades and all but…but there was something about the girl’s single-mindedness that worried her. Sighing to herself she walked on, maybe her sister would grow out of it and go back to the nice normal young teenage girl she used to be.

0=0=0=0

Yawning and stretching Willow looked up from the couch where she’d dozed off and smiled at Buffy as she walked into the room.

“Hi Buffy,” Willow sat up and looked at the clock on the wall; it was nearly time for her to go home, “sorry I must have dozed off.”

“No problemo,” Buffy smiled, “where’s Dawn?”

“She’s in bed,” Willow watched her friend sit on the coffee table in front of her; there was something odd happening but she couldn’t think what. “She said she had a test tomorrow and she wanted to get an early night…hey Buffy, that’s a very daring outfit you’ve got there, were you wearing that when you went out?”

Buffy was indeed wearing what would be considered a ‘very daring outfit’ in small town Valle del Sol. She wore a low cut; some would say very low cut, white cotton blouse, and tight black trousers that hugged every curve of her hips and legs. Willow found her eyes kept straying to Buffy’s cleavage however much she tried to look away.

“Sure I was,” Buffy smiled and leant forward resting her elbows on her knees and co-incidentally giving Willow a better view down the front of her blouse. “The vampires couldn’t keep their eyes off them,” she glanced down at her breasts, “just like you can’t!”

“Buffy!” Willow squeaked in embarrassment as she turned her eyes away from Buffy’s heaving bosom, “I-I wasn’t I-I never…I mean…!”

Turning back to look at Buffy, Willow gave a little surprised scream; her friend had taken off her blouse and was in the process of unclipping her bra.

“NO!” cried Willow as she wriggled along the couch trying to get away from her half naked friend, “What’d you think you’re doing?”

“Oh come on Willow,” grinned Buffy as she cast the bra to one side, “don’t be so coy…don’t you just want to touch them?”

Running her own hands across her breasts, Buffy knelt in front of her horrified and confused friend.

“Go on Willow,” Buffy cupped her breasts in her hands and held them up towards Willow, “touch them…you know you want to.”

“No!” wailed Willow as she tried to look away but found that her eyes wouldn’t obey her brain, “Please Buffy,” she begged, “please don’t make me…”

Watching with frightened eyes Willow saw her trembling hands move of their own accord towards her best friend’s breasts. She sighed as her hands came in contact with the velvety smoothness of Buffy’s skin; she felt her friend’s nipples go hard under the palms of her hands and she felt her own nipples pressing against the constraint of her bra. Moaning softly Buffy pressed her breasts more firmly into Willow’s hands as she lifted her face up to her friend's and brushed Willow’s cheek with her lips.

“Willow?”

“AAGH!” screamed Willow as she rolled off the couch and fell onto the floor.

Looking around in confusion Willow found herself sitting on the floor looking up at a puzzled and, more importantly, fully clothed Buffy Summers.

“Are you okay?” Buffy looked down at her friend the concern in her voice obvious for all to hear, “You were moaning and mumbling and tossing and turning…sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

“NIGHTMARE!” Willow grasped at the straw that had been held out to her, “Yes,” she panted, “a nightmare a real vivid one.”

Reaching out her hand Buffy helped Willow back on to the couch.

“Look,” Buffy turned towards the small kitchen at the back of the apartment, “I’ll make you some tea then I’ll walk you home.”

“No need,” still in something of a panic Willow stood up quickly, and started to stuff her school books into her bag, “I’ll go now I-I’m late an-and…” she found she couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

“Nonsense,” called Buffy from the kitchen, “you’ll have a cup of tea and then I’ll walk you home, I’d never forgive myself if you got attacked or something.”

Reluctantly Willow sat down and tried to work out what was happening to her.

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

“Is that her, Sister?” Sister Brigit pointed across the street at the two teenage girls walking down the opposite sidewalk.

“Yes that’s the cheap whore,” agreed Sister Deifilia sharply.

“The other girl is the little Jewess I take it?” the Irish nun smiled to herself, her sister, Sister took life far too seriously and was easily angered.

“That’s the little bitch, yes,” Deifilia picked up the binoculars from where they rested down by her feet and watched the girls through the windscreen of the van.

“I don’t know how Father Rupert could have let things slip so badly, to be sure.” Sister Brigit sighed sadly.

“Well,” Deifilia lowered the glasses as the girls disappeared around the corner of the street, “as usual we’ll have to clean up the mess; come-on lets follow them.”

Opening the glove compartment Deifilia removed two large calibre automatic pistols and two long silencers, she handed a pistol and silencer to her sister.

“Sure it’s a shame now,” Brigit screwed the silencer onto the end of her pistol before concealing it under her habit; “there’s not enough night-hunters in the world that we have to send one early to the Lord.”

“I’m sure God has a lesson for us here,” agreed Deifilia as she handed Brigit a spare magazine of bullets, “but I’ll be blessed if I know what it is!”

Nodding to each other they got out of the van, closed the doors quietly behind them and started to follow the teenagers through the dark streets of Valle del Sol.

0=0=0=0

Having left Willow at her door Buffy started to retrace her footsteps homeward. Willow had been acting oddly all the way home, when Buffy had put her arm through Willow’s, like she normally did when they were walking together, Buffy could feel the tension in her friend’s body. Then when she'd got Willow to her door and she had tried to kiss her friend on her cheek, Willow had cried out and dashed inside her house and shut the door without even saying goodnight.

Trying to think if she’d done something to upset her friend, Buffy walked on not paying as much attention to her surroundings as she normally would; she was too concerned about her friend. Willow was her best friend, true she had other girlfriends but Willow knew everything about her, and to lose her friendship…well, it just didn’t bear thinking about. Coming to a sudden halt Buffy almost turned around and went back to Willow’s house to demand to know what was wrong.

No, Buffy shook her head and started walking again; no it could wait until the morning, she smiled to herself, it was probably nothing, maybe it was Willow’s ‘time of the month’. Or maybe…a vague memory came back to her; something the Nightwatch lady had told her when they were talking about…sex. The woman had told her that sometimes girls fell in love with each other and did ‘it’ together. Buffy had no idea how that would work…well girls didn’t have…’thingy’s’; she’d been totally confused by the mechanics of it all. Perhaps she should have listened more attentively to what the English woman had said; she’d been very frank and open about the whole subject even more than her mother had been, when she’d explained where babies came from. Anyway, maybe Willow thought Buffy was turning into one of these…these…she stopped and frowned, what had the woman called them? Something beginning with ‘S’ she was sure; oh well, it could all wait until tomorrow.

0=0=0=0

“Sister,” hissed Deifilia quietly, “we could take her now!”

“What!” Brigit managed to stop herself from crying out too loudly, “But the Cardinal said…”

“I know what Fang said,” Deifilia pulled the pistol from under her habit; “permission from Mexico City is just a formality. The decision’s already been made.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Brigit shook her head in indecision, “and that’s for sure now.”

“Look,” Deifilia whispered urgently, “she’s half asleep, we could walk up to her and blow her brains out and be gone long before anyone knew what was happening.”

Looking up and down the street Brigit had to admit that her sister was right, at this time of night all God fearing Christians, except them, were safely tucked up in bed. The streets were empty and the Asesina was distracted, it appeared there was no time like the present.

“Alright,” nodded Brigit as she pulled out her own weapon, “let’s do it!”

0=0=0=0

Walking along, her mind on other things, Buffy didn’t sense the vampire until just before he jumped out of the shadows behind her. Even so she managed to turn and face the fanged fiend just before his head exploded in an eruption of blood and brains right before her eyes. Finding herself covered in blood, lumps of brains and bits of skull she spat pieces of bone and bloody globules from her mouth. Staggering away from the corpse that still wasn’t quite dead, she saw through blood blurred eyes the headless cadaver reach for her as it stumbled onwards. Kicking out with her foot she broke the vile creature’s leg; it fell to the ground, twitched for a moment and then lay still.

Wiping the blood from her eyes Buffy looked around the empty streets no one had seen her and nothing else appeared out of the darkness to attack her. Trying to wipe the blood from her hands and face she turned for home and started to run; she needed to get the stuff off her, and soon. More frighteningly she thought she might have swallowed some of it, she needed to stick her fingers down her throat and make herself vomit, but doing that before she’d washed the blood off her hands would just make things worse.

No one knew, or if they did they weren’t talking, whether an Asesina could be infected and turned into a vampire, a Haemovore as the British called them, and Buffy didn’t want to find out! Running on towards home she worked out a plan; get home, strip off, shower and vomit; then while her clothes were burning call Padre Rupert, he’d know what to do.

0=0=0=0

Standing with their backs against the wall of a nearby house, Sisters Deifilia and Brigit gasped for breath.

“Where the fuck did that bloodsucker come from?” panted Brigit for a moment forgetting her vow to abjure from obscenities. 

“No idea!” Sister Deifilia sucked in a great lungful of air before letting it out slowly as she got her breathing under control.

Everything seemed to have been going to plan as the Sisters had walked silently up behind the Asesina. Deifilia had raised her weapon and aimed it at the back of the girl’s head. Just as she pulled the trigger, the vampire, had burst from the shadows and interposed himself between the nun with the gun and her target, inadvertently saving the Asesina’s life. The big soft noised bullets they used produced horrific wounds but rarely passed through a target. Finding themselves faced with a now alert Asesina the nuns had run for their lives, just as they had been trained. Now they had to think quickly before the Asesina got onto their trail.

“She was covered in vampire blood,” observed Brigit, “she’ll want to get it off her so she will; she’ll probably go home…we could kill her there.”

“No,” smiled Deifilia, “I’ve got a better plan!” she chuckled to herself. “We go to the priest’s home, kill him then call the police.”

“What?” Brigit looked at her sister a puzzled frown on her face.

“Look,” explained Deifilia, “what better way of getting rid of the Asesina than framing her for the murder of her own confessor?”

“Ah!” nodded Brigit, “Yes who knows what dirty little secrets he knows about her?”

“Exactly!” grinned Deifilia.

Hiding away their weapons the two nuns started to walk towards Padre Rupert’s home.

0=0=0=0

“Is that you Willow?” called Willow’s mother from the living room.

“Si Mama,” cried the teenager, she’d hoped to get in and upstairs without having to face her mother, she was still somewhat shaken by the dream she’d had about Buffy.

Reluctantly she walked into the lounge to see her mother sitting in her armchair reading a book. Sheila Rosenberg looked up at her daughter and in that annoying way some mothers have knew immediately that there was something wrong.

“What’s wrong honey?” Sheila got up and walked over to her daughter, she laid a concerned hand on her daughter’s shoulder, “You’ve not had an argument with Buffy have you?”

“No it’s not anything like that,” sighed Willow, “it’s just…well, I’ve been having bad dreams lately and I don’t feel well.”

“Oh baby!” Sheila felt her daughter’s forehead, “you don’t seem to have a temperature…shall I call Doctor Morales?”

“No Mama,” Willow gave her mother a weak smile, “I just need a good night’s sleep.”

“Alright,” her mother put her arm around Willow’s shoulder and kissed her on the forehead, “you go and have a shower then go straight to bed eh? I’ll look in on you later.”

Shaking her head Sheila watched her daughter head for her room and sighed, why did children want to grow up so fast? Why didn’t they tell their parents when they were feeling ill? Sighing again she sat down, she’d check on Willow before she went to bed, then if her daughter was no better in the morning she’d call the doctor. It was no good, she couldn’t help fussing over her little girl; she _was_ a Jewish mother after all.

0=0=0=0

Drying her hair on a towel Willow sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled her robe more tightly around her, she was worried; she was worried that her best friend in all the world might think she didn’t like her any more. She was worried about all the vivid sexual dreams she’d been having, maybe her mother was right, maybe she should see Doctor Morales; maybe she’d been subconsciously making herself dream the dreams.

“Hi Willow,” came the all too familiar voice from the other side of the room.

Turning horrified eyes towards the door Willow saw Xander leaning against the wall smiling down at her.

“No!” she gasped halfway between a sob and a cry of despair, “No it can’t be I’m not asleep, I can’t be…”

Glancing behind her Willow saw her own head resting peacefully on the pillows.

“Noooo!” she wailed burying her face in her hands, “this can’t be happening.”

“Hey,” smiled Xander as he walked over to stand in front of her, “aren’t you pleased to see me?”

“Yes,” sniffed Willow, “no…I don’t know.”

Looking up into Xander’s dark smiling eyes she felt herself start to drift away from reality. Lifting Willow to her feet Xander undid the belt of her robe and slowly peeled it away from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Shivering at his touch Willow moaned deep in her throat as Xander caressed her breasts before folding her in his arms.

“Please no,” she gasped as Xander’s hands roamed over her naked body and his lips brushed against hers.

“I thought this was what you wanted,” Xander stared into her eyes seemingly holding her there with just the power of his gaze.

“It is…was…” gasped Willow unable to drag her eyes away from his, “...I always hoped someday I…we…could…but not like this.” 

For a moment resistance flared in Willow’s heart.

“If you really ever loved me Xander,” she begged, “you wouldn’t do this to me…not like this. Please let me go I…”

Darkness overtook her as Xander smiled down into her eyes, the last thing Willow remembered seeing were Xander’s eyes getting bigger and darker until there was nothing but blackness.

0=0=0=0

Standing under the shower Buffy pulled off her blood soaked clothes and scrubbed frantically at the dried blood on her hands and face. Lifting her face to the shower head she opened her lips and swilled water around her mouth before spitting it into the bath. Pink water washed around her feet before swirling down the drain. Standing naked under the shower she drank more water Feeling it go down into her stomach she rammed her fingers down her throat. Her throat spasmed and her stomach heaved, a moment later she was on her knees retching up her stomach contents. Luckily she’d not eaten before going on patrol that night so all that came up was fluid tinted with pink and the occasional fleck of dark brown dried blood. Coughing she drank more water and immediately threw-up again.

“Buffy?” Dawn’s frightened voice came from the other side of the door, “You okay in there?”

“Yeah I’m fine,” gasped Buffy and immediately vomited more blood and water into the bath.

Not convinced by her sister’s claims Dawn burst into the bathroom.

“Madre de dios!” she almost screamed when she saw her sister crouching in the bath coughing up blood and vomit, “What’s wrong?”

The girl reached out her hand to her sister.

“STAY BACK!”

The force of her sister’s warning sent Dawn stumbling back a step or two where she almost tripped on Buffy’s blood and water soaked clothes.

“Jesus, Buffy!” Dawn gasped, “What’s…?”

“Vampire,” Buffy coughed as she fought to control her stomach muscles, “his head exploded and I got covered in his blood.”

“Right, yeah, okay, but…” Dawn took a deep breath; this was no time to panic. “Look you can’t be infected you’re the Asesina right? Asesina’s can’t be infected…you always said…”

The girl looked in terror at her sister as the silence dragged on and on.

“I swallowed some of its blood,” admitted Buffy eventually, “I could be infected…I might turn into one of them.”

Vampirism was like a disease, you could get infected from the bite of another vampire or from swallowing some of their blood. The Asesina de Demonios was supposed to be immune but no one knew for sure and no one wanted to test the theory.

“Look,” panted Buffy, she had stopped throwing-up for now, “pack some clothes and get over to Willow’s house, Senora Rosenberg will look after you. Tell her I’ve got food poisoning or something; tell her I’m in hospital.”

“No,” Dawn almost stamped her foot, “I won’t leave you Buffy…you’ve all I’ve got left.”

“You know what I’ll do if I change?” Buffy wiped at the water that dripped into her eyes, “I’ll kill or turn you…you know that right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” something of the older resolute Dawn came to replace the frightened little girl of a moment ago, “you can try.”

“What you gonna do?” Buffy smiled sadly at sister, “pull my hair?”

“Always worked when I was little,” Dawn took a step towards her sister, “now switch off the water dry yourself off and I’ll get you your robe, okay?”

“Sure,” Buffy sighed, “why not?”

Slowly she climbed out of the bath and started to dry herself off.

0=0=0=0

Yawning Father Rupert looked at his pocket watch, it was late, he put down the copy of ‘Franklin’s Demonology’ that he’d been reading and levered himself out of his armchair. Looking around his apartment he sighed; there were books everywhere, lying on the floor and on almost every flat surface in the room. Some people would say that his apartment was ‘small’; he preferred to call it ‘cosy’. Whatever you called it-it was certainly untidy and he promised himself that he’d tidy up that very weekend. Just as he turned towards his tiny kitchen the front door bell rang.

“Wonder who that could be?” he muttered as he worked his way towards the door.

Putting his plans for a hot drink on hold for a moment he put his eye to the spy-hole. You didn’t just open the door to strangers late at night in Valle del Sol not without checking them out first…you could, but, you’d not live long. Squinting through the little glass covered hole Rupert was shocked to see two nuns standing outside his door. More than a little puzzled as to why any nun would want to visit him at such a late hour he started to unlock locks and pull bolts. After about a minute he got the door open.

“Can I help you Sisters?” he asked careful to keep his hand on the door so he could slam it shut just in case.

“Father Rupert?” asked one of the nuns, her Spanish was slightly accented.

“Yes that’s me,” Rupert smiled relaxing a little, just before he saw the nun pull a pistol from under her habit.

He tried to shut the door but the nun was too quick. There was a quiet ‘PHUT!’ as the silenced pistol went off, followed quickly by two more. Rupert fell lifeless to the floor as the nuns turned and walked quickly away their habits billowing behind them like big black cloaks.

0=0=0=0

“How’d you feel?” asked Dawn as she walked across the living room.

Her heart skipped a beat when there was no answer; cautiously she made her way around the couch where she’d left her sister. Sighing with relief she saw Buffy curled up on the couch fast asleep, her hand stuffed under her head where it rested on a cushion and her mouth wide open as she snored gently. Smiling Dawn ran to find a blanket to cover her sister up, being careful not to disturb Buffy, Dawn tiptoeing out into the short narrow hall and picked up the telephone receiver from the wall.

Her sister had mentioned that she needed to talk to Padre Rupert and Dawn was pretty sure she’d not done so before falling asleep. It was time for her to step up and help her sister out as much as she could. Dialling carefully Dawn listened to the phone circuits clicking as she was connected to the Padre’s number. She listened while it rang…and rang, and rang. After waiting a full two minutes Dawn shrugged her shoulders and put down the receiver.

Maybe the old guy was so fast asleep that he hadn’t heard the phone, maybe he was out. Who knew what old priests got up to in the middle of the night? Dawn certainly didn’t, anyway it could all wait till morning; Buffy looked as if she was sleeping peacefully and had so far shown no sign of turning into a vampire. Glancing at the clock on the wall Dawn decided it was time she was in bed too. Switching off the lights she made her way to her bedroom and gratefully collapsed into her bed.

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Standing in the doorway of the priest’s little apartment, Detective Lieutenant Pascual Soto looked down at the body and drew deeply on his cigarette. He’d been called at just after four o’clock; a priest had been murdered and he had to investigate. As far as he was concerned one less priest in the world was a plus, but there’d been a crime so he had to look into it. His Captain knew of his dislike of priests so had immediately assigned Soto to the case; his Captain had a sick sense of humour.

Soto had stopped believing in god, priests and religion about halfway through his first child rape case twelve years before; so far nothing had happened to make him change his mind. Evil things still happened to nice honest people, while the guilty walked free and laughed in his face. Maybe this old priest had been a kiddie-raper; maybe he had screwed one of the girls who arranged the flowers at the local church. Perhaps some angry father or boyfriend had finally plucked up the courage and blown the fucker’s brains out all over the apartment floor. Whatever had happened Soto would find out who was responsible.

Crushing the cigarette out under the heel of his cowboy boot, Soto edged along the wall of the short corridor where the priest lay and looked into the tiny living room. Whatever else this priest may or may not have been, he wasn’t big on housework. Turning back to the body he ran his eyes once more over the priest’s corpse; it was time for him to start earning his pay.

The first thing Soto noticed was that the priest had been shot three times, once in the head and twice in the chest. A professional hit, he mused; maybe the girl he’d screwed was the daughter of a rich man who could afford a hired gun? Large calibre bullets too by the look of the entry wounds plus there was all the blood on the walls.

“Hey,” Soto turned to look at the two uniforms who were standing in the living room cluttering up his crime scene, “has anyone moved the body?”

“No Lieutenant,” the older of the cops shook his head, “this is how we found him.”

“You were first on the scene?” Soto suddenly became more interested in the two patrolmen.

“Si Lieutenant,” the cop produced a note book and opened it, “Gomez,” he gestured to his younger partner, “and I were on mobile patrol nearby when we got a call over the radio. That would be at about three-fifteen, something about a disturbance.”

“What sort of disturbance?” Soto wanted to know.

“They didn’t say,” admitted the cop, “control just said a woman had phoned in about a disturbance.”

“What time did you get here?”

Soto walked around the corpse, as he passed the front door he noticed all the locks and bolts, he made a note in his notebook before standing in the corridor and looking back into the apartment.

“Less than five minutes Sir,” the older cop looked up from his note book, “we weren’t that far away. We looked around outside for a while then Gomez here noticed the door was open and we came upstairs. We found him like this,” he gestured at the body.

“You saw no one hanging around outside the building?”

Both uniforms shook there heads. Soto sighed and shook his own head, no reason that they should, he thought. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing and wouldn’t hang around waiting to be spotted.

“Thank-you officer…?”

“Lopez, Sir.”

“Yes thank-you Lopez,” Soto said absently, “and you too Gomez, I’d like you to wait here a while I may need to ask you other questions.”

“That’s okay,” grinned Lopez, “the desk sergeant says we’re to stay here and secure the scene.”

“Good, good,” muttered Soto as his eye caught sight of the spy hole in the door.

A new theory was beginning to form in his mind; the priest (he really should find out what the old perverts name was) had been killed by someone he knew or at least someone that he didn’t fear. From the look of all the locks on his door he’d feared a lot of things, Soto smiled to himself, even the most perverted priest couldn’t piss off that many of his parishioners so he’d need to fortify his door like that.

“Do we know were…?” Soto gestured at the body.

“Padre Rupert,” supplied Lopez.

“Where Padre Rupert worked?”

“Oh that’s easy,” smiled Gomez, “he’s the librarian at the new High School sir.”

“I see,” breathed Soto as his mind bounced back to the kiddie-raper theory.

“Sir?” Gomez must have noticed something in Soto’s voice and felt he had to defend the dead man, “Padre Rupert was a good man everyone says he was, my little sister goes to…”

“Yes, yes I’m sure he was,” Soto cut the young officer off in mid sentence.

He was beginning to think Gomez was right. This had all the signs of a professional hit. Enraged fathers aside he didn’t really think the good Padre had been killed to cover up any sordid little sex crime. Now all he had to do was work out why Padre Rupert had been killed and then he’d find out who had done it or who had given the orders.

0=0=0=0

Waking up Buffy shielded her eyes from the sunlight that shone around the edges of the curtains. Her heart hammered in her chest proving it was still beating; sensitivity to light was one of the first symptoms of turning into a vampire. Taking a deep breath, Buffy knew she had to fight this as long as she could…at least until Dawn was out of the apartment then…

“Hi Buffy!” Dawn burst into the living room from the kitchen, she waved a cup of coffee at her sister, “you want something to drink?”

“Please,” croaked Buffy, as she gazed hungrily at her sister’s neck.

“Here,” Dawn put the coffee cup down in front of her sister and went back into the kitchen, “you want something to eat?” she called over her shoulder.

“No, no thank-you,” Buffy sat up and sipped at the coffee.

It tasted odd, flat somehow, that was another symptom. Normal food tasted bland and soon she wouldn’t be able to face eating or drinking anything that wasn’t…blood!

“You sure?” Dawn reappeared with a piece of toast in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other; she sat down next to Buffy and smiled at her. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine, fine,” Buffy tried to back away from her sister, she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off Dawn’s neck, “shouldn’t you be getting ready for school or something?”

“Plenty of time,” Dawn bit into her toast with a crunch, “I wanted to have enough time to check you were okay, so…?”

“So?” Buffy frowned.

“So are you okay?” Dawn looked worriedly at her sister and stopped eating for a moment.

“Yeah,” Buffy smiled, “I’m fine.” 

Standing up she walked across the room and straight through a beam of sunlight; she screamed and dropped her cup as the light touched her skin. Turning she stared at her sister.

“Get out!” she sobbed.

“But Buffy!” Dawn had by this time got up and was standing not knowing whether to run to her sister or run for her life.

“Go get dressed,” ordered Buffy, “and go find Willow or Padre Rupert, tell them what’s happen.”

Stumbling towards her bedroom Dawn sobbed out loud, having lost her parents it now looked as if she was going to lose her sister.

0=0=0=0

Waking up just before her alarm rang Willow yawned and smiled as she reached over to silence the clock’s bell. This morning she felt really good; better than she had for days…although she did feel oddly full this morning. What was more she had absolutely no recollection of any dreams, erotic or otherwise, from the night before. Lying back on her pillow she glanced over at her window, sunlight streamed in around the curtains, the weather seemed to be mirroring her mood.

“Oh well,” she sighed, “better get up.”

Absent-mindedly she ran her hands over her body and froze as they came into contact with were her stomach should be…where her more or less flat stomach should be. Pushing back the blankets in growing panic she stared down at the lump, the very big lump that rose from her stomach. Willow screamed and screamed and carried on screaming long after her mother had come in to see what was wrong.

0=0=0=0

Emptying the cold coffee into the sink Mary wished she knew what the hell was going on. Letting herself into the Rosenberg’s house that morning she was surprised to find an agitated Mrs Rosenberg pacing up and down the hall chain smoking as she spoke urgently on the phone to someone. Usually Mary didn’t see Mrs Rosenberg as she would already be off to work. Quite often she would see Willow Rosenberg before the teenager went to school, and this morning Mary had the feeling that Willow was what all the fuss and upset was about. Mrs Rosenberg put down the phone and crushed out her cigarette before lighting another.

“Is there anything I can do Mrs Rosenberg?” Mary asked as she stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

“No…no…oh,” Sheila smiled at her maid, “Thank-you Mary but…but, look,” she took a deep breath, “something’s happened to Willow…”

“Oh lordy no!” Mary gasped.

“Look I’ve called the doctor I just need someone to handle things while I deal with…” Sheila gestured vaguely along the corridor towards her daughter’s room.

“Never you fear Mrs Rosenberg,” Mary smiled encouragingly at her employer, “you leave it to me I’ll look out for you.”

“Mama?” came a thin wail from down the corridor where Willow’s room was situated.

“You go, look after your girl,” Mary patted Sheila on the arm and watched her hurry away.

Going back into the kitchen Mary put on a new pot of coffee and tidied up, once everything was spic and span and the coffee was made she posted herself by the kitchen door and watched the door to the girl’s room.

What the hell was going on, she asked herself, this sounded like something more than some normal illness this sounded ‘unusual’. Mary was twenty-eight years old and had spent the last eight of them as an SOE agent. Why her bosses had wanted her to keep an eye on the Rosenbergs she didn’t know and she hadn’t asked; what she didn’t know she couldn’t tell. But she’d kept Sheila Rosenberg and her daughter under observation for the six months she’d worked for them. There was a knock at the front door.

“I’ll get that,” Mary called as she walked along the corridor and opened the front door, “Can I help you?” she asked the middle aged Mexican man dressed in a smart suit and carrying a doctor’s bag.

“Doctor Morales for Senora Rosenberg?” he asked.

“You better come in,” Mary stepped to one side to let the doctor in and pointed him towards Willow’s room.

As she closed the door Mary took a moment to watch the street for a few seconds; nothing looked out of place. Even so when she got back to the kitchen she walked over to where she’d left her handbag and checked the small automatic pistol that lay hidden inside.

0=0=0=0

The coroner had removed the priest’s body leaving a white chalk outline in its place, Gomez and Lopez had left with the body leaving two new uniformed officers to replace them. Soto looked along the shelves at the priest’s books; the old man had some interesting reading habits, if you believed in that sort of thing. Which of course Soto did, you couldn’t be a cop and not know about the things that lurked in the shadows. The things that no one talked about unless it was in a bar late at night with your buddies; the things some people didn’t want you to talk about…ever.

Walking over to the chair where the priest had been sitting, the only other chair in the room was covered in books and magazines. Soto picked up the leather bound tome the old man had left on the table beside his chair, he read the title; Franklin’s Demonology, the book was considered a classic of its type. Sighing Soto put the book down again and looked around the room one last time. There was nothing more to be learnt here, the body was gone even the blood stain had been mopped up. The fingerprint man had been through the place and a photographer had taken pictures. He’d learn no more until he had the coroner’s report and he started to interview the priest’s friends and colleagues.

Hearing a noise by the door Soto looked up and saw a tall, thin, balding man in a black clerical suit walk into the apartment.

“I’m sorry Señor,” Soto moved to block the man’s path, “this is a crime scene.”

“That’s all right officer,” smiled the priest coldly, “I’m Cardinal Higgins, Padre…sorry, the late Padre Rupert’s superior.”

The Cardinal held out his hand, the ring on his finger upper most. Soto very pointedly ignored the gesture and grasped the cardinal’s hand in a firm handshake.

“Glad you’ve come,” Soto let go of the cardinal’s hand quickly, it was like shaking hands with Death; but without the robes and the human warmth, “I’m hoping you can answer some questions for me.”

“Anything I can do to help…?” there was that dead fish smile again.

“Detective Lieutenant Pascual Soto, Señor, now if you could tell me,” Soto got out his note book and resisted the urge to go for his gun instead, two dead priests in one day would start people talking. “What exactly was Padre Rupert’s position at the High School?”

“Two fold,” the Cardinal’s eyes roamed the room, Soto wondered what he was looking for, “Not only did he run the library but he also supplied spiritual guidance for the students.”

“Did he have any enemies…anyone who might hold a grudge?” Anyone who was fed up of having the old man’s hand up her skirt, he added to himself.

“No, no one,” the Cardinal shook his head sadly, “he was a very well liked man.”

“So it would seem,” mused Soto more to himself than to the priest, “I will of course be talking to all Padre Rupert’s colleagues.”

“Yes, and quite right too,” agreed the Cardinal with a nod, “you shouldn’t just take my word…”

“I wasn’t going to,” interrupted Soto before asking another question, “so, there’s nothing you think I need to know?”

“Umm,” the Cardinal hesitated, “I hesitate to say anything…I mean it could be nothing…”

Here it comes, thought Soto, now I get to find out who ‘Cardinal Death’ thinks did it.

“There’s a young woman…”

Ha! I thought so, Soto smiled to himself, so the old goat had been ‘dipping his wick’, as the British so delicately put it.

“...a sad case,” the Cardinal nodded his head in agreement with himself, “her parents were killed by the British last year, she was left with a younger sister to look after. Padre Rupert tried to help but she seemed to see his offers of help as some sort of ploy to get to her sister. To do what, I’ve no idea…the young woman could become quite violent at times…”

“The ‘young woman’s’ name?” Soto held his pencil poised over his note book.

“Señorita Buffy Summers,” announced the Cardinal slowly so that Soto could write the name down correctly.

“Does Señorita Summers have any particular friends?” Soto wondered why the Cardinal wanted to frame this Buffy girl, who had no doubt suffered years of sexual abuse from this Rupert swine.

“There’s a Willow Rosenberg she’s very close to,” supplied the Cardinal.

I see, thought Soto, get rid of the inconvenient Jewish girl at the same time, she’d probably found out what was happening to her friend.

“Thank-you Señor Higgins,” Soto smiled slightly at the flash of anger he saw cross the Cardinal’s face when he didn’t use the man’s correct title, “I will definitely look into this.”

The cardinal went straight to the top of Soto’s list of suspects; so far it was a very short list, in fact it only had one name on it.

0=0=0=0

Folding away his stethoscope Doctor Morales turned away from Willow and looked at her mother.

“Senora,” he took hold of Sheila’s arm and led her outside into the corridor, “if you don’t mind I’d like to speak with your daughter alone for a moment.”

“Why?” Sheila’s trembling hand searched for her cigarettes, she found them and put one automatically in her mouth.

“It’s…” Morales hesitated as he lit Sheila’s cigarette, “It’s just that she’s more likely to talk about…” he made a vague gesture, “...about her, erm, condition more freely if you’re not there.”

“But…!” wailed Sheila.

The doctor caught sight of Mary standing by the kitchen door he beckoned her over.

“Please,” he asked the coloured woman, “please take the señora and sit her down…perhaps give her a cup of tea?”

“Sure thing doctor,” Mary gently led Sheila towards the kitchen, “I’ll look after her.”

With the mother out of the way maybe Doctor Morales could get to the bottom of this.

0=0=0=0

Crouching over the toilet bowl, Buffy dry heaved as she tried to vomit up things that weren’t there. Coughing and wiping the tears from her eyes she sat on the bathroom floor and crossed her arms over her aching stomach muscles; she couldn’t understand why no one had come, where was Padre Rupert? Why hadn’t Willow come to see what was wrong? Surely they couldn’t all be scared of coming round? Slowly she lay on her side on the floor and drew her legs up curling herself into a ball. She didn’t want to die not now; she had Dawn to look after now that Mama and Papa were gone. Thoughts of her parents brought more tears to her eyes, she sobbed quietly and covered her eyes with her hands; the light hurt them so much.

“Mama,” she cried quietly just before she passed out.

0=0=0=0

Doctor Morales didn’t quite believe what he had just heard, the girl’s tale was quite unbelievable, but some aspects of it were backed up by her mother, and unless both of them were delusional… He shook his head, he was a man of science this sort of thing just didn’t happen in this day and age; it was 1950 for Christ’s sake not 1450! However the story he’d been given; the erotic dreams the fact that the girl had gone to bed the night before and woken up this morning like that! No, it was too much like the symptoms he’d been told to look out for by the Health Department, this was a reportable condition, he had the number he should ring somewhere in his bag.

Finding the card he lifted the phone and dialled, he listened to the telephone ring at the other end. It was answered at the third ring. He explained the situation to the woman at the other end who put him through to a man. Once more Doctor Morales explained the situation half expecting to be told not to worry, that there was no real problem. On the contrary the man sounded very interested in fact he asked Morales to keep an eye on things until he could send someone over to deal with the situation.

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Walking quickly along the street towards Willow’s house Dawn sniffed back her tears. Her sister was slowly turning into a vampire and then when she went to see the only man who might be able to help she’d discovered Padre Rupert had been murdered! Next she’d learnt that the only other ‘rock’ in her life, Willow Rosenberg, had not come to school today. Could it be that Willow had been infected too? Buffy hadn’t said anything about Willow being with her when she’d been sprayed with vampire blood. But, Willow was nearly always with Dawn’s sister and hadn’t Buffy said something about walking her friend home? Turning up the garden path to Willow’s front door Dawn wiped away the tears that trickled down her face and banged on the door, there was no reply. Just as she was about to knock again the door was opened by a black woman in a maid’s uniform.

“Is-is W-Willow home?” sniffed Dawn as more tears ran down her cheeks, “I really n-need to s-see her.”

“I’m sorry sweetheart,” the woman gave Dawn a concerned look, “but Miss Willow’s ill an’…”

“Oh no!” Dawn sobbed sinking to the ground and sitting on the door step, she buried her face in her hands, “Not her as well?”

Feeling like her world was once again falling down around her Dawn wondered what she had done that God would do this to her. Had she been too quick to condemn her sister over the whole, ‘my boyfriend Angel is a vampire’ incident? What had she done to deserve having first her parents taken from her and now her sister was going to turn into a blood drinking monster and poor Willow was going to die. Willow who had stood by Buffy and herself through thick and thin. Willow, who’s father had disappeared and whose life long friend, Xander, had been killed by a shell even as he tried to protect his friends. It was at about this moment when Dawn decided that she didn’t like this God who played with peoples lives any more.

“Come on honey,” Mary squatted down next to Dawn and put a comforting hand on the girl’s arm, “you come in an’ tell Mary what’s worth all these tears.”

Leading the sobbing teenager through the house Mary sat her down at the kitchen table. Pouring the girl a cup of coffee she placed it in front of her before sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

“What’s wrong?” she asked patting the girls arm as it lay on the table top, “You can tell me.”

So Dawn did, and as the girl poured out her heart to the ‘nice black maid’, Mary suddenly realised why her bosses at SOE had sent her here to watch the Rosenberg’s. What she couldn’t work out was why she’d not been sent to keep an eye on the Summers’ girls.

0=0=0=0

Sitting in their van across the street from the Rosenberg house Sister Deifilia and Sister Brigit waited for Cardinal Higgins to turn up. Deifilia watched the house while Brigit pushed bullets into a spare magazine.

“It’s disgusting,” muttered Deifilia.

“What’s that Sister?” Brigit finished loading one clip before starting on another.

“That a Jew woman can live in a house like that while good Catholics live in poverty.”

Sighing Brigit stopped her loading and looked at her sister-Sister.

“Now that’s not a very Christian attitude now is it?” after working with Deifilia for a couple of years she was used to her sister-Sister’s Jew baiting ways. “Anyway it’s all God’s will, and for goodness sake Sister,” Brigit patted her sister on the thigh, “we’re going to kill the poor heathen woman and her daughter before the mornings out!”

“I suppose you’re right,” admitted Deifilia after a long sigh, “the woman and her whore daughter will be sent for judgement soon enough without me judging them in this life.”

“Good,” nodded Brigit going back to loading her magazine, “I’ll say a prayer for you tonight…and you better say one y’self for guidance.”

“I will,” agreed Deifilia as she watched the big black limo draw up in front of their van, “oh look, here’s the Cardinal.”

0=0=0=0

Waking up on the bathroom floor Buffy felt her stomach churn and start to rumble, she was starving! Slowly she pushed herself up off the floor and held her head in her hands and realised she wasn’t hungry for blood. In fact a vision of a big plate of ham and eggs floated in front of her eyes; she was almost positive that vampires didn’t dream of fried breakfasts.

In a state as near to bliss as she was likely to get this side of heaven, Buffy dragged herself towards the kitchen and the refrigerator. Opening the door she was disappointed not to see ham or even eggs waiting for her, she did however see a bottle of milk which she grabbed and drank in one go. Gasping a little for air she started to laugh with relief, she’d not turned into a bloodsucking fiend after all. Either ‘hunters’ were immune or she’d not swallowed enough vampire blood to infect her properly. Turning towards the window she screwed up her eyes, she was still a little sensitive to light but she could live with that.

Realising she needed to call people and tell them she was all right, Buffy went for the phone while she stuffed bread into her mouth and swallowed without hardly chewing. Picking up the phone she dialled Padre Rupert’s number at the school, it was answered by a strange male voice that wanted to know who was calling and told her the Padre was ‘unavailable’. Buffy slammed down the phone when her mind started sending her danger signals. Some six sense was telling her something was very wrong and she needed to find her sister and her friend Willow.

0=0=0=0

Detective Lieutenant Soto put down the phone in Rupert’s office, so that was the Summers girl, she didn’t sound like a killer. If his suspicions were correct the girl was probably more of a victim than a murderess, but that wouldn’t save her from the hangman’s noose.

Turning his back on the phone Soto walked out of the priest’s office and started to head for the school office. He’d found out everything he was likely to at the school. All the staff had said the same thing; Padre Rupert was a quiet, hard working man who kept himself to himself. When asked if there were any pupils the good Padre was close to he was told that the Padre had a special interest in Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris (who had been so tragically killed by the British).

So, thought Soto, the old goat liked boys as well as girls; however, it was odd that he had an interest in the Jewish girl. The Summers’ girl he’d have a hold over by telling her no one would believe her if she told and if she did she would burn in the fires of hell for all eternity. He’d have no such hold over the Rosenberg girl, as far as he could remember the Jews didn’t have the concept of a hell in their faith.

Finding himself gazing into the bemused eyes of the school secretary Soto wondered what his next move should be. If he was a teenage girl on the run he wouldn’t go home…he’d go to his best friend’s house.

“Señorita,” Soto gave the middle-aged secretary his best ingratiating smile, “could you give me the address of Señorita Willow Rosenberg,” he flashed his police badge and the woman started to look through her records.

0=0=0=0

The two nuns slipped spare magazines into the special pockets in their habits before hiding their pistols with their long silencers in the folds of their clothes. Climbing out of the van they walked over to the Cardinal’s car and waited for him to open his door.

“Good morning,” the Cardinal looked at his watch as he climbed out of his car, “sorry, good afternoon, Sisters.”

“Good day Monsignor,” chorused the nuns as they curtsied to the priest.

“Shall we get on with this?” he started to walk towards the Rosenberg house, “As the bard said; if it were to be done, its best done quickly…or something like that.”

The nuns fell in behind the Cardinal as he strode up the garden path.

“As the old saying goes,” the Cardinal stopped at the front door and raised his hand to knock, “no one expects the Congregación Sagrada Suprema de la Oficina Santa, our chief weapon has always been, surprise.”

The Cardinal knocked and a moment later the door was opened by a man in a suit.

“Doctor Morales?” asked the Cardinal.

The doctor nodded and the priest smiled as he stood to one side.

“Sisters,” ordered the priest, “do your duty and may God be with you.”

0=0=0=0

Sitting at the kitchen table Mary was still trying to rationalise what the girl, Dawn, had told her. The mission all made sense to her now, there must have been more to the raid last year than just punishing the Mexicans for stirring up trouble with the natives. She'd heard rumours about nuclear bombs and monsters in a secret base under the town but she’d discounted these as being the usual wild stories you got after operations like that. It was like the stories you heard about Nazi bases at the South Pole and flying saucers.

Her musings were interrupted by a loud knock at the front door, she was just about to go and answer it when the doctor called out that he’d get it. Mary was just sitting down again when she heard the familiar ‘Phut!’ of a silenced pistol shot from the front door and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

0=0=0=0

Watching the doctor fall to the floor Cardinal Higgins waited for the nuns to clear the doorway before following them in. Kicking the body of the doctor out of the way, and being careful not to get blood on his shoes, he waited for the two Las Hermanas de Venganza to finish their work. It was all so unfortunate that it had to come to this, but it was also so necessary. There had been no end of trouble the last time the Lord had got a Jewish virgin pregnant, and the Catholic Church was going to make sure it didn’t happen again.

0=0=0=0

Stumbling across the kitchen Mary grabbed Dawn by the arm; snatching up her bag she dragged the girl towards the back door.

“What!?” squeaked Dawn as she was pulled roughly towards the door.

“If you want to live,” snapped Mary as she kicked open the door, “you’ll come with me.”

0=0=0=0

Hearing a noise from the back of the house, Sister Deifilia made her way to the kitchen, cautiously opening the door she scanned the room for threats over the top of her pistol. There were signs of a hurried exit; a chair lay on its side, the back door swung gently backward and forwards. 

Stepping quietly across the room Deifilia carefully stuck her head out of the doorway, only to duck rapidly back inside as a bullet buried itself in the door frame just above where her head had been. Swiftly regaining her composure she sprang from the door and sent a fusillade of shots down the garden towards the rear fence and at the two figures that were just scrambling out of sight.

0=0=0=0

Walking briskly along the corridor to the girl’s bedroom Sister Brigit suddenly found herself face to face with the woman she knew to be Señora Rosenberg. Firing without hesitation she paused to watch the woman slump to the ground.

0=0=0=0

Pumping her legs, Buffy rapidly picked up speed; she was riding her sister’s bike which was just a little too big for her. Even so she was doing nearly fifty miles an hour by the time she reached the entrance to the street where Willow lived. All her hunter’s senses where telling her that something was very wrong and that her sister and her friend were in danger.

Leaning steeply to the left Buffy swung into Willow’s road, part of her mind registered the black limo parked on the opposite side of the street and the grey van next to it. Applying the brakes she slowly brought the bike to a halt, jumping from the saddle she let the bicycle fall to lie on the side walk. Running across the lawn towards Willow’s house she noticed the front door open and a figure dressed in black robes stepping out of the doorway. It pointed something at Buffy, it took a moment for her to realise it was a gun.

0=0=0=0

Stepping over Sheila Rosenberg’s body, Sister Brigit turned and strode into the girl’s bedroom. The curtains were still draw and the killer nun took a second to adjust to the new light levels. Pointing her weapon at the bed she saw the little red haired Jewish girl. There was terror in her eyes as she tried to hide from the Lord’s agent of vengeance. Drawing a bead on the girl’s head Sister Brigit started to squeeze the trigger.

“STOP!”

Pointing her weapon at the ceiling Sister Brigit glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the man’s voice, Cardinal Higgins was standing in the corridor just behind her.

“Monsignor?” Brigit stepped aside to let the Cardinal pass.

“Change of plan,” he walked into the room and looked down at the whimpering girl, “we keep the girl alive, for now. Take her!” he ordered nodding towards Willow.

Holding her pistol in her right hand Sister Brigit stepped around the bed and grabbed hold of Willow’s wrist. Hauling the girl to her feet, Brigit noted with disgust the girl was at least eight months pregnant. The vile little slut wasn’t even wearing a wedding ring to hide her shame. Ignoring the girl’s screams of protest Brigit dragged her down the corridor, past the body of her dead mother and that of the doctor and out of the front door.

Coming out into the daylight again Brigit saw a blonde girl jump from her bike and run towards her across the lawn. Her heart leapt into her throat when she recognised the rapidly approaching girl. It was the Asesina! Raising her pistol Brigit took aim and fired.

0=0=0=0

The nun fired as the world slowed down around Buffy; this often happened when she went into a fight. Padre Rupert had explained to her that it wasn’t that the world had slowed down; it was that she’d speeded up. The woman from Nightwatch had said more or less the same thing but had added some stuff about adrenaline and things Buffy hadn’t really understood.

Dodging to one side, Buffy felt the bullet flutter by her left ear. Two long strides brought her within reach of the nun; her hand moved at what looked to Buffy to be at normal speed while the nun seemed to be moving at a rate four or five times slower than would be normal. Easily taking hold of the nun’s wrist Buffy twisted the nun’s arm; she felt bone shatter under her hand and watched as the pistol slowly flew into the air, she watched it spin in mid-air for what felt like an eternity.

Snatching the gun out of the air Buffy pointed it at the nun and fired at point-blanc range into the nun’s face. Later Buffy would remember seeing the bullet leave the barrel and smash into the woman’s head. It seemed to take forever for the pistol to cycle through its firing sequence. Reaching through the cloud of expanding blood, bone and brain; Buffy took hold of Willow’s arm and pulled her gently towards herself. As Willow fell into Buffy’s arms the world suddenly caught up with Buffy and everything was moving as it should be.

“Come on Will!” Buffy spoke urgently to her friend, “We’ve got to get away from here.”

0=0=0=0

Running out of the door Sister Deifilia fired two quick shots after the Asesina bitch and her whore friend; neither round hit its intended target. Pulling up short she knelt to examine her sister-Sister’s body, it was obvious that Brigit was dead. There was a neat bullet hole in the centre of her forehead and the grass was covered in blood and brains. Deifilia cursed under her breath vowing to hunt down and kill the devil-spawn that had killed her only true friend in this world.

“Leave her!” Cardinal Higgins walked briskly from the house towards his car.

“But…” Deifilia stood up still holding the gun in her hand and gazed in shock after the priest.

“We haven’t got time,” called the Cardinal over his shoulder, “the police will be here soon, we must go.”

It took all of Deifilia’s strength of will not to raise her pistol and send the Cardinal for judgement right there, right then. He was going to leave Brigit; a good and loyal Sister to me pawed over by…men! Who knew what wicked stories would be spread about her, it wouldn’t even be certain that they’d get her body back so they could give her a proper Christian burial.

Realising that getting herself arrested wouldn’t help her dead friend; Deifilia muttered a short prayer over her friend before she ran for her van. She wouldn’t forget, however, she wouldn’t forget how ‘The Fang’ had been willing to leave one of their own on the battlefield. She would have her vengeance, she swore by St. Annushka, the patron saint of her order, that all those who were responsible for her Sister’s death would feel her wrath.

0=0=0=0

“What’s going on?” demanded Dawn as she and Mary finally came to a halt in someone’s back yard.

They’d climbed over the fence in Willow’s back yard and found themselves in the garden of the house behind Willow’s. Bullets had whistled over their heads as they’d run. Mary had led them on a zigzagging course through houses and gardens until she felt they had outpaced any pursuit

“Looks like someone doesn’t like your sister’s friend, girl,” Mary was hardly breathing heavily she’d kept herself in shape; by the looks of it the girl could do with doing a little more PE and a little less gossiping with her friends.

“What?” gasped Dawn as Mary pulled her by the hand towards the street.

“Those were Las Hermanas de Venganza,” Mary stuffed her little pistol back into her bag, “the Catholic Churches’ hit nuns,” Mary smiled at the idea of nuns with guns then sobered quickly when she realised she’d just escaped from a brush with a highly trained killer. “Your sister’s friend done anything to piss off the Catholic Church in these parts?”

“No!” exclaimed Dawn, “Willow and her mom are nice they wouldn’t do anything to…”

“Wouldn’t stop the flics any,” Mary looked up and down the street as they came to a main road, “wouldn’t matter how nice an’ kind they were. Flics would kill ‘em if it suited their purpose.”

“Flics?” Dawn wished she knew what was going on, she wished her sister was here.

“Caf-Flics,” Mary put on what she was told was a good copy of an Irish Protestant accent, she saw realisation blossom in Dawn’s eyes.

“You’re not really ‘Mary the nice Coloured Maid’ are you?” Dawn stopped bringing Mary to a halt.

“No,” Mary pulled on Dawn’s hand and got her walking again.

“Is your name even Mary?” Dawn was starting to get angry now, too much was happening too quickly and no one would give her a straight answer.

“Sure my names Mary,” the woman gave Dawn a sympathetic smile, “but I ain’t a maid and I sure as hell ain’t escaped from the ‘good ol’ U S of A’.”

Once again Dawn stopped bring them both to a halt, this time it looked as if she was going to dig her heels in until she got some sort of explanation.

“Look,” Mary turned to face the girl, she could see the fear and confusion in Dawn's eyes, “tell you what, you come with me. I know a safe place an’ I’ll tell you everything I know, then you can decide what you want to do.”

The last bit about being able to decide what she wanted to do had been a lie, Mary knew exactly what was going to happen to the girl. She’d be going on a long holiday to British Columbia as soon as she could arrange it, maybe even Hawaii. The further away from Mexican territory the better. The SOE wasn’t in the business of killing teenage girls if they could possibly avoid it, but the Flics were. Willow Rosenberg was almost certainly dead, as was her mother and that poor Doctor, Mary shock her head in disgust. If Dawn’s sister didn’t run as far and as fast as she could, then Asesina or no, the Flics would get her too.

“Come on, Dawn,” Mary smiled encouragingly, “we gotta go.”

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

6.

Sitting in her car Señorita Cordelia Chase waited impatiently for the traffic signals to turn to green, as she waited she contemplated the train wreck that was her life. It just wasn’t fair, she complained to herself, how could Papa do this to her? How could he tell his little princess that she had to marry Señor Gutierrez? He knew she wanted to go to La Madera Santa and be an actress in the movies. But oh no! He said that she had to give up all her dreams of fame and wealth and marry stinky old Señor Gutierrez.

Alright, she admitted as she glanced up at the signals, Gutierrez wasn’t actually ‘stinky’, but he was old even if he was incredibly rich, and had that enormous villa on the coast and a yacht and loads of servants and… Cordelia pulled herself together, no, she told herself firmly, the bright lights of La Madera Santa called to her, fame and fortune awaited her in Los Angeles and…

“What the hell!?” Cordelia turned to stare at the two teenagers who were climbing into the back of her car, “Who do you think…”

The rest of Cordelia’s sentenced died on her lips as she found herself looking down the barrel of a huge gun.

“Drive!” ordered the blonde girl holding the gun.

“Si, Señorita!” Cordelia put the car into gear and shot off through the still red traffic signal, “Where would you like to go?”

Glancing in her rear view mirror Cordelia could see her question had confused the gun wielding maniac in the back of her car.

“I don’t know!” the blonde sounded uncertain as if she’d done this on the spur of the moment, “Just drive!”

“Si!” Cordelia drove down the street frantically looking for a policeman or someone who could help her.

Why had this happened to her? Was this some sort of punishment for not wanting to marry Señor Gutierrez? Why hadn’t papa bought her the sports car like she’d asked? Alright the car he’d got her was beautiful, Candy Red, and matching real leather interior and all; but a saloon? It was like he wanted her to be kidnapped, a thought crossed her mind.

“You don’t work for my father do you?”

“Just shut up and drive!” ordered the bossy little blonde with the big gun.

“Okay, okay,” Cordelia sighed, “you’ll never get away with it…what ever ‘it’ is. Look I’ll stop and we can all go our separate ways, I promises I won’t tell.”

“Look perra,” Buffy poked the muzzle of the pistol hard into the back of Cordelia’s neck, “I’ve already killed a nun today so killing a ‘mujerzuela rica’ like you isn’t going to bother me too much.”

“Madre de Dios!” Cordelia put all her attention into driving and praying.

0=0=0=0

“How do you feel?” Buffy wrapped her arm around Willow’s shoulder and tried to comfort her sobbing friend while still keeping the pistol pointed at the back of the rich girl’s head.

“They killed Mama and Doctor Morales,” wept Willow as she clung on to Buffy, “an-and I woke up with this,” her hand rested on her distended belly, “I must be going mad!”

Breaking down into great floods of tears Willow hung onto her friend like she was the only concrete thing in her world. Buffy tried to calm her friend, they needed to get away, she needed to plan and she needed to find out what the hell was going on. Looking out of the passenger window Buffy saw that they were already on the north side of town, she needed to start making some decisions now.

“Hey, perra!” she called to the girl at the wheel.

Suddenly Buffy found herself trying to prevent herself and Willow from being thrown into the back of the front seats as the dark haired girl at the wheel stood on the brakes bringing the car to a screaming halt. The girl turned and pointed her finger at Buffy as if it was a gun.

“Look here blondie,” she said through gritted teeth, “my name isn’t ‘perra’ its, Señorita Cordelia Chase, AND I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO IN THAT WAY!” Cordelia shook her head haughtily making her long black cures bounce around her face, she turned and put her hands back on the steering wheel before drawing in a long deep breath, “Now,” she said more calmly, “where do you want me to drive you?”

“S-sorry S-señorita,” stuttered Buffy completely unnerved by the girl’s reaction, “if you would be so good as to take the next turn onto the Highway, and then head up into the hills, por favour.”

0=0=0=0

The flies were already starting to buzz around the blood stain as Detective Lieutenant Pascual Soto stepped over the body of the nun and walked into the darkness of the Rosenberg house. He paused at the front door to see that it hadn’t been broken open, for the second time today he found that the murder victim had opened the door to their killer voluntarily. He looked down at the body of a smartly dressed man who lay in a pool of blood just inside the door.

“One shot to the head,” announced Investigator Felipe Nunez, “large calibre bullet at close range,” he pointed at the hole in the man’s forehead, “see, you can see the powder burns. I’d say the muzzle of the weapon was about half a metre away when it was fired.”

“And good morning to you too, Felipe,” smiled Soto as he crouched down next to the body.

“Not for the good doctor it wasn’t,” Nunez shrugged and held out a man’s wallet to Soto, “you got here quick.”

“I was already on my way,” Soto took the wallet from Nunez and started to go through it, he found nothing unusual and handed it back to the forensic investigator.

“The doctor here was the Rosenberg’s family doctor, had been for fifteen years,” Nunez stood up and gestured to the two coroner’s men who’d been waiting impatiently outside in the sun. “Take him away please,” he told them, “the other body is just around the corner.”

Leading Soto further into the house he gestured at the woman’s body that lay in the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

“Senora Sheila Rosenberg,” announced Nunez as if he was making a formal introduction, “once again, one close range shot to the head with a large calibre bullet.”

Looking at the wall behind where the woman lay Soto saw only blood and brains splattered on the wall no bullet hole.

“Not a through and through then?”

“No,” agreed Nunez, “at a guess I’d say the assassins were using soft unjacketed rounds, possibly hollow point. I won’t know for sure until we dig the bullets out of their heads,” Nunez sighed deeply, “I’ll warn you now, I doubt I’ll be able to match the bullets to any weapon.”

“No weapons found then?” Soto looked around on the floor hopefully.

“Nothing,” Nunez shook his head.

“So,” mused Soto, “we have a dead Jewess, a dead Doctor and a nun with her head almost blown off, no murder weapon and no witnesses.”

“That’s about it, Lieutenant,” agreed Nunez, “Oh, about the nun.”

“Yes?” Soto had pulled out his note book and was quickly jotting down his thoughts and impressions, “What about the ‘poison penguin’?”

Like priests, Soto believed there were far too many nuns in the world, so losing a few didn’t bother him too much.

“Odd thing,” continued the forensics man, “this is only a preliminary study mind.”

Nodding his head for Nunez to go on, Soto looked up from his book.

“The nun’s wrist has been crushed, I’d guess just before she was killed.”

“You mean broken?” Soto’s pencil was poised over his note book.

“No,” Nunez shook his head, “crushed like in a vice.”

“Interesting,” mused Soto, “care to speculate?”

“Who ever killed the nun,” explained Nunez, “probably crushed her wrist first for some reason, and then shot her.”

“Maybe she was holding something the perp wanted,” suggested Soto with a grin.

“Maybe,” Nunez shrugged his shoulder non-committally.

“So, we’re looking for a large powerful man?” Soto closed his book and started to put it back into the pocket of his denim jacket.

“Um, no.”

“No?” Soto looked at the investigator sharply.

“No, Lieutenant,” began Nunez hesitantly, “from the bruises on the wrist I’d say the marks were more in line with a woman or a teenage girl and not a particularly powerfully built one.”

“So,” recapped Soto, “you’re telling me that some teenage girl crushed the wrist of the nun out there, then came in here and shot the doctor and Senora Rosenberg?”

“Maybe,” shrugged Nunez, “you’ll have to read my report,” the investigator grinned at the detective.

“Ha!” barked Soto, “You’ve not mentioned the daughter, Willow Rosenberg?”

“Why would I?” shrugged Nunez, “Until ten seconds ago I didn’t know I should be looking for her.”

“No sign of a teenage girl then?”

Nunez shook his head.

“Interesting,” Soto got out his note book again, “mind if I poke around?”

“Be my guest,” Nunez knelt down next to Senora Rosenberg’s body, “just don’t get your sticky fingers over everything, we’ve not dusted for finger prints yet.”

0=0=0=0

Finding himself in the kitchen, Soto looked around at the signs of a hurried departure. He walked over to the new electric percolator and poured himself a cup of coffee. All ‘mod-cons’ he mused, electric percolator’s were new and expensive. He rested his back against the kitchen surface and cast his eyes around the room. The back door was open; a chair lay on the floor as if someone had got up quickly and knocked it over. Two half full cold cups of coffee still sat on the kitchen table along with a kitchen towel.

He tried to reconstruct the scene in his mind. Two or more people had been in the kitchen; a maid possibly (Senora Rosenberg looked rich enough to afford one) and maybe the daughter. Then there’s a disturbance out in the hall as persons unknown burst into the house and shoot the doctor and Senora Rosenberg. Whoever is in the kitchen makes a rapid escape…unless of course there were more bodies lying around somewhere.

Putting down his coffee cup Soto walked over to the kitchen door, something made him look up, policeman’s instinct maybe. He ran his hand over the splintered hole at just about head height on the door frame; he’d seen enough bullet holes to know what it was. Small calibre pistol, probably an automatic. So, someone had fought back, stepping out of the door he looked left and right.

To the right and towards the street was a wooden gate nearly two metres high with a padlock on the catch, no one went that way. A wooden fence about a metre and a half high ran the length of the garden. He turned to follow the path into the backyard, as he did so something tinkled against his foot. Crouching down he used his pencil to pick up the brass cartridge case that lay on the pathway. He read the printing on the base of the cartridge; ‘.45 APC’, it said. Probably from a Colt .45 automatic pistol, an American weapon. Which proved nothing in itself, the Colt was a popular weapon (he had one himself) and the Americans exported them widely.

He walked down the backyard, there was an area of lawn and some neatly tended flowerbeds, plus a couple of small shade trees. Washing still hung on the line, all women’s clothes by the look of it. Soto reached the back fence and examined it. Quickly he found scuff marks on the wood. One or more people had climbed over the fence, putting his foot on the fence he boasted himself up and looked over into the next yard. His eye picked out several cartridge cases glinting in the sun light. Someone had fired at the house, possibly to prevent someone (the killer maybe) from following. Jumping down from the fence Soto walked briskly back towards the house. He’d point Nunez in the direction of the cartridges in the yard and have the uniforms start door to door enquires. He wanted answers and he hoped they would lead him to Cardinal ‘Death’.

0=0=0=0

“Okay,” Buffy looked around, “pull off the road here.”

They had driven for some kilometres along the highway until Buffy had instructed Señorita Chase to turn onto a minor road, little more than a dusty track really, that led into a small valley surrounded by trees and brush. After bouncing along for another kilometre or two she ordered the girl to stop.

“Alright,” she told Chase, “get out.”

Reluctantly Cordelia opened her door and climbed out the car. Buffy removed Willow’s arm from where it was wrapped around her own when the redhead had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Climbing out of the car Buffy stood up and faced the tall attractive young woman who was her hostage, she pointed the gun in her general direction.

“I suppose you’re going to shoot me now,” Cordelia tried to stand tall and be brave; she really wanted to fall to her knees and beg for her life, but that would be unseemly.

“No,” replied Buffy incredulously, “I was going to tell you to walk back to the road. I’m sure you’d find a police patrol who’ll take you home.”

Cordelia looked at Buffy incredulously, “In these shoes!” Cordelia pointed to her no doubt expensive high heeled shoes.

“What!?” Buffy couldn’t believe her ears, here she was giving this perra her worthless life back and she was complaining that she was wearing the wrong sort of shoes!

“Do you realise just how much these shoes cost?” Cordelia demanded taking a short step towards Buffy.

Looking down at the shoes in question, Buffy had to admit they were very nice shoes and probably cost more than her monthly allowance. Coming back from ‘shoe-world’ Buffy pointed the pistol at Cordelia’s head.

“Okay then,” Buffy pursed her lips, “I’ll just shoot you instead.”

Unexpectedly the gun made a loud ‘Phutting’ noise and a bullet whistled over Cordelia ’s head. Both girls screamed in surprise and Buffy dropped the gun as if it was a poisonous snake. With a presence of mind that her father would have thought beyond his spoilt daughter’s capability Cordelia stepped forward and scooped the pistol from the ground. She juggled the weapon in her hands for a moment until she had it pointed in the right direction; Cordelia looked up to see Buffy almost on top of her. She screamed in surprise and tried to fire the pistol, failed and found herself flying through the air to land heavily in the dry grass at the side of the track. Once more she looked up to find the blonde girl standing over her with her fist clenched and ready to punch her in the face. Cordelia held up her hands to protect herself.

“Please don’t kill me,” she begged.

“Get up,” Buffy ordered as she relaxed and took a step away from Cordelia, “and get walking,” she jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of highway.

Slowly Cordelia got to her feet and dusted herself down; she reached down and took off her shoes. Then pulling up her skirt, she undid her suspenders and took off her stockings. They were new nylon ones and she wasn’t going to ruin them by walking in her stockinged feet back to the highway.

“Buffy?” the voice came from the back of the car.

Turning Buffy strode back to the car and looked into the back seat, she saw Willow trying the get herself out of the open door, she held her hand out to Buffy and gave her a pained smile.

“Give me a hand,” pleaded Willow, “I need to pee.”

“Madre de Dios!” Cordelia ’s hand flew up to her mouth as she watched the pregnant girl waddle around the car, in an instant she knew exactly what was going on here.

Having helped Willow out of the car, Buffy let her shuffle unsteadily around the car until it was between her and the road; she looked away as Willow pulled up her night gown and squatted down in the grass.

“You still here?” Buffy asked the rich girl, Cordelia , she picked up the gun from where it lay in the dust.

“Let me help!” Cordelia blurted out as she took a step towards Buffy, “Ow!” she hopped on one foot for a moment before recovering her balance.

“How can you help?” Buffy turned away from the girl, how could anyone help…nearly everyone she knew was dead!

“I’ve got money,” Cordelia smiled hopefully, “and I can get more.” Aha! She thought, that got her attention, the blonde girl turned to look at her through narrowed eyes.

“Why would you want to help us?” Buffy wanted to know.

“I know what it must be like to be forced into a marriage you don’t want,” explained Cordelia.

“What?” Buffy stared at the girl as if she were insane.

“Yes!” Cordelia continued completely mistaking Buffy’s look for one of surprise. “My father wants me to marry a rich old man; obviously your friend’s father forced her into a loveless marriage.”

Probably to some smelly rancher, thought Cordelia , these girls couldn’t be anyone she would normally mix with.

“So, you did the only thing you could do,” Cordelia drew herself up to her full one-hundred and sixty-seven centimetres and struck a dramatic pose, “you rescued your friend and struck out to make a new life for yourselves.”

The silence stretched for a full minute until Buffy said;

“Huh?” 

Walking over to her, Cordelia bent down and put her mouth next to Buffy’s ear.

“Couldn’t you have done it before she fell pregnant?”

0=0=0=0

“I want to go home,” Dawn sat on a chair in the kitchen of Mary’s little apartment and tried not to cry any more.

“Sorry, sweet-thing,” Mary called from her bedroom, “but if you did you’d like as not end up dead, an’ I wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“But who are all these people?” Dawn demanded as she got up and walked to the door of the bedroom.

Watching as Mary rapidly packed a small case with clothes and toiletries, she considered making a break for the door and then home. But what if the coloured woman was right? What if there were people trying to kill everyone around herself and her sister? What if her sister was waiting at home ready to rip out her throat and drink her blood?

“Here,” Mary broke into Dawn’s thoughts, she held a flower patterned summer dress out to her, “try this on.”

Slowly Dawn started to remove her school blouse and skirt, “Just who are you?” she asked, “Really.”

Pausing from looking through her clothes Mary realised that with the girl’s background, telling her she was a British secret agent was probably not the best thing to do.

“Dawn honey,” she smiled reassuringly, “I’m just someone who don’t think it right for people to go ‘round shooting other people like that…”

“But you’ve got a gun,” Dawn stood for a moment in her underwear before she started to put on the dress, it was an inconvenient truth.

“Sure I have,” Mary shrugged, “just as well, don’t you think?”

“‘Spose,” admitted Dawn.

“Here,” Mary passed a pair of nylons and a suspender belt over to Dawn, “put those on as well, while I look for some make-up that’ll do for a white girl…got to make you look older.”

“You have?” Dawn brightened up as she ran the stockings through her fingers, Mama and Buffy hadn’t let her wear stockings before, they said she was too young…and make-up too, wow!

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

7.

High above North America the Sidhe starship hung in exactly the same way that bricks don’t. No navigation lights or light from observation windows twinkled to betray its presence. Radar beams passed right over it without a flicker and light seemed to be sucked into its cold, deep, black surface. Had a human observer been in a position to observe the Sidhe vessel all he or she would have seen was a deep, dark, black hole in space.

Deep within the ship the Sidhe Captain sat behind his desk and looked up at the crewman who stood at a rigid attention in front of him. The Captain ran a long fingered hand over his face, shook his head in despair and sighed deeply. He glanced at his First Officer who stood just to one side of his desk facing the prisoner, again the Captain sighed as he turned his black, gold flecked eyes back onto the man before him.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right, Crewman E-Lyk” he began wearily, “and don’t hesitate to jump in if I get anything wrong. I’m sure everybody here wants to hear the truth in this matter.” 

The captain glanced around the room, his look encompassed the guards on the door the Warrant Officer who stood next to the prisoner and his First Officer before falling on the notes in front of him on his desk.

“Right,” breathed Captain K-Rik, “not satisfied with tormenting this native woman…”

“Excuse me Captain,” the First Officer interrupted.

“Yes, Commander K-Cops,” the captain turned slowly to look at his first officer.

“I think, sir,” Commander K-Cops spoke dispassionately, “that it should be pointed out to the court that the native woman in question would not be described as a ‘woman’ within her own society; she would be considered either an older child or very young adult.”

“Thank-you, Commander,” Captain K-Rik glanced at his notes once more, “as I was saying, not content with tormenting this native female with erotic dreams in which you appeared as her long dead best friend; you then kidnapped her and brought her aboard the ship against…well against so many regulations I can’t begin to list them…”

“If I might sir?” the Commander started to recite the regulations, “Section three, subsection five, paragraph…”

“Yes thank-you, Commander K-Cops,” the captain stopped his first officer before he could really get started, “now where was I?” he sighed, “Oh, yes, not content with these nightly visits you bring this female aboard the ship, where you hold her for nearly eight planetary months, impregnate her, and then…” the captain paused once more to shake his head in disgust, “when you thought you were about to be discovered, and this is the part that I don’t understand how you thought you could get away with…”

The prisoner gave the Captain K-Rik a helpless shrug.

“You used the ships Time Dilation capability,” the despair was evident in the captain’s voice, “to take us all back in time and deposit this poor wretched native girl back in her bed so that when she woke up it would appear that no time had actually past, from her point of view. But you forgot one thing didn’t you? You forgot that this poor creature was nearly eight months pregnant!”

The captain paused and let the silence stretch for a minute before speaking again.

“Good…god…man!” exclaimed Captain K-Rik, “what were you thinking? Were you thinking? I mean religions have started over less. Spontaneous pregnancy! I mean apart from the effects on the female and her family, something like this could seriously damage the development of an entire planet,” Captain K-Rik stopped to catch his breath, “now I hope you have something to say in your defence…well? I’m waiting.”

The prisoner looked at the unsympathetic faces of the Captain and the First Officer; he knew he was in deep trouble. This was going to result in more than a stoppage of pay or a restriction of his privileges, he took a deep breath.

“Um, sir, well,” he really didn’t know where to start, “I think, sir, that by the time Red…”

“Red?” the Captain K-Rik turned around at his First Officer, “Who…is…this ‘Red’?”

“The native female, Captain,” whispered the Commander, Captain K-Rik nodded his understanding, “Go on,” he ordered the prisoner.

“Well, sir, I think by the time Red left she had actually grown to love me,” Crewman E-Lyk looked around helplessly as it suddenly dawned on him that his fate was sealed.

Resting his head in his hand Captain K-Rik rubbed his eyes before looking up at the prisoner again.

“Alright,” he sighed, why did this have to happen on his ship, he’d be a laughing stock when they got back to port. “Remanded to the brig to await trial by Courts Martial when we get back to Star Base 29, march the prisoner out, Ms D-Nar.”

There was a lot of shouting and stamping of feet as the prisoner was marched out of the cabin. When everyone had left Captain K-Rik turned to his First Officer.

“Sit down, K-Cops,” K-Rik gestured to a chair, K-Cops sat down in front of the captain’s desk.

“Please tell me,” Captain K-Rik dry scrubbed his long, sad face, “that he had the sense to tag this female before he let her go.”

“Yes sir, he did,” nodded the Commander.

“Thank the stars for small mercies,” Captain K-Rik almost sounded pleased at the news until he noticed the frown on K-Cops’s face, “you’re going to tell me something that’ll give me an ulcer aren’t you?”

“Sorry, Captain,” the K-Cops shrugged sympathetically, “the tag Crewman E-Lyk used was for shipboard use only. We’ll have to send a landing party down to the planet surface to have any hope of finding this female.”

The captain swivelled his chair so he was looking at the blank bulkhead to his left, he watched the bulkhead for a long minute before speaking again.

“Alright,” Captain K-Rik slowly turned to face K-Cops, “get a landing party together; marines and a medical detail, and I want you in charge of this. Get down to the surface, find this female, remove the hybrid and return with it to the ship. We’ll decide what’s to be done with it later.”

“And the female?” K-Cops asked slowly.

“She’s not to be harmed,” K-Rik gave K-Cops a hard stare, “if at all practical she should have her memory scrubbed of the entire incident, understand?”

“A selective memory scrub Sir,” replied K-Cops slowly, “that’s a difficult procedure, Captain, what if…”

“I said, ‘if practical’,” K-Rik shook his head in sorrow; the Sidhe, as a race, weren’t generally cruel or evil, “if it’s not ‘practical’, do what you think best, I’ll support you decision, you understand?”

“Of course Captain,” K-Cops nodded his head, “the logical and safest thing to do would be to eliminate the female and anyone who had knowledge of her condition.”

“Damn…your logic…K-Cops!” snapped K-Rik, “Enough harm’s been done without you running around shooting the natives!”

“Indeed Captain,” agreed K-Cops slowly, “there is, however the matter of how Crewman K-Lyk managed to perpetrate his crimes. Use of the Matter-transporter, use of the Time Dilation device; not to mention hiding the female aboard the ship for eight months…”

“Yes! I…know…K-Cops!” K-Rik expostulated, “He must have had help…I’ll have Mr U-Lus start an investigation into this affair right away!”

“Talking of the Matter-transporter,” K-Cops rubbed his chin with a long bony finger, “I’ll have to take a shuttle craft for such a large well equipped expedition…”

“Do…what you thinks’ best…K-Cops!” K-Rik looked at the papers on his desk once more, “Check in with me before you start out, eh?”

“Of course, Captain,” K-Cops stood up and headed for the door leaving the captain to his own dark thoughts.

0=0=0=0

Alone once more in his office the Captain opened and observation port and looked down at the planet below him. Just because some oily little crewer couldn’t keep it zipped up the planet below might well end up as a burnt out cinder. He sighed once more before returning to his paperwork.

0=0=0=0

The car bounced along the back road leaving a plume of dust in its wake, Buffy sat in the front passenger seat next to Cordelia, she glanced over into the back where Willow lay sleeping. Willow’d been doing that a lot and Buffy wondered if it was normal. Turning she watched out of the windscreen at the road ahead. It reminded her of her life; long, twisted and full of obstacles.

“What am I going to do?” she asked herself quietly.

“What?” Cordelia glanced around at Buffy.

“Sorry, nothing, I…” Buffy paused to collect her thoughts, “We need stuff,” she announced finally.

“Darn right we do,” agreed Cordelia, “I’ve only got what I’m dressed in now, if we’re going to go on the run I’ll need a whole new wardrobe!”

“No…” Buffy held on to her temper, obviously this girl, Cordelia, was completely self involved, “No, we need stuff like food, somewhere to stay and some clothes for Willow…”

“Yeah what is it with her,” Cordelia jerked her head towards the back seat, “I know I said all that stuff about forced marriages, but that was mainly coz I thought you were going to kill me.”

“You did?” Buffy was alarmed for a moment, was that really how she came over to people?

Then she thought back to what she’d said and done, and the gun going off like that.

“Sorry,” she said after another moment.

“Its okay,” smiled Cordelia.

To Buffy, Cordelia seemed to be perfectly at ease with the idea of being held at gunpoint and kidnapped, in fact she appeared eager to help.

“Why are you helping us?” Buffy’s eyebrows drew together as she glanced at the rich girl, “You know you can go, I wouldn’t hurt you, you could leave us at the next town.”

“Yeah, well,” for a moment Cordelia lost the grin that had been on her face since she’d discovered she wasn’t going to die. “Like I say, you know all that stuff about forced marriages…well it wasn’t all an act. My father wanted me to marry some rich guy who is waaaay too old for me. I mean I have plans for myself and they don’t involve being some sort of baby machine for some old guy who left it too late to get married!”

“Oh!” Buffy could see how something like that could tick someone off.

“Well, after I got over the whole being ‘kidnapped’ thing,” Buffy could almost hear the inverted commas in Cordelia’s voice, “I started to think that this could be an opportunity, right?” Once more Cordelia turned her big white toothed smile on Buffy, “I can run away from home and if we’re caught I can claim that you forced me to go with you and I won’t get in trouble with my father for running off!”

“Cordelia,” Buffy said slowly, “you do realise that the police will soon be after us if they’re not already.”

“Yeah,” Cordelia frowned for a moment, “what about that, and what about that stuff about shooting nuns?”

“You sure you want to hear this?”

“Yeah, why not?” the grin was back on Cordelia’s face and Buffy started to think that this girl’s almost perpetual good humour would get on her nerves before too long.”

“Look,” Buffy began by putting as much ‘seriousness’ in her voice as she could, “last night when I walked Willow home she was most definitely NOT pregnant. This morning when I went round to see her she most definitely was! Plus there was this nun with a gun dragging her off to a van or something. I-I got the gun off the nun, shot her coz she wouldn’t let go of Willow and then we ran!”

“Oh,” Cordelia didn’t sound surprised at all; Buffy wondered if anything would penetrate her thick hide.

“Now, I find out that my priest has been killed, Willow’s mom and her doctor were shot by the nuns…”

“Nuns?” queried Cordelia, “As in more than one?”

“So Willow says,” confirmed Buffy, “anyway, as I was saying, everyone around me seems to be getting killed and I don’t know what’s happened to my little sister.”

There was silence in the car while Cordelia sorted out Buffy’s story in her mind. Once she’d thought it through she glanced at Buffy.

“You and Willow are real close, right?”

“Best friends,” admitted Buffy, “since from Junior High.”

“Oh,” Cordelia nodded her head slowly, “Hey! You’re not, what do they call them? Sep…sap…sapphists are you? Coz that would be real cool y’know?”

“No we’re not!” Buffy turned confused eyes on the rich girl; the word rang vague bells in her mind. “OH!” her hand went to her mouth as she remembered the conversation with the lady from Nightwatch while she’d been held prisoner up in BC. “You mean girls who…y’know…with other girls?”

Cordelia nodded her head eagerly.

“No definitely not!” Buffy said as firmly as she could.

“Sure?” Cordelia raised her eyebrow questioningly, “Pity,” she sighed sadly, “it would’ve looked good in my book…”

“Your book!?” Buffy turned to look at the girl incredulously.

“Yeah!” Cordelia sounded excited about the whole idea, “I was going to write this book, you know? Society girl gets kidnapped, it would add a bit of ‘spice’ to the story if I could say I’d been held by a couple of sapphist fiends.”

“Oh good grief,” Buffy hid her face in her hands; maybe she should shoot the girl after all?

0=0=0=0

Replacing the receiver Cardinal Higgins glanced up and gave Sister Deifilia a worried look as she stood in front of his desk.

“I’ve arranged for you to return to your convent,” he said smoothly, “and then on to a mission overseas.”

“What about Sister Brigit’s body?” the nun asked coldly.

“I’ll-I’ll make arrangements,” he didn’t like the look the killer nun was giving him, maybe he’d need to deal with her as well. “You better go,” he said dismissing her.

Watching as the nun cast him the blackest of looks Higgins rested his elbows on his desk and buried his head in his hands, what had he done? The door closed behind Deifilia, alone again he opened the secret drawer in his desk and laid the files out in front of him. These, or at least copies of these documents, were his insurance. If ever the police tracked him down and arrested him he would have a powerful bargaining tool to save him from the hangman’s noose.

However, he had more to fear from his own organisation than from the police. No police commissioner in his right mind would issue a warrant for the arrest of a Cardinal. But his own people might well have him killed, one day he might open his door to find someone like Sister Deifilia standing there, and then…well, then it would all be over. But if he let the right people know that he had concrete evidence of the fraud and abuse of power rampant in the higher levels of the church…well, he might just get away with it; or at least live out his life in jail.

He knew all about the plans the more conservative parts of the church had for countries like Mexico. They wanted things to go back the way they were, they wanted to go back to the days when if the church said jump; the government would ask ‘how high’? Everything had been going wrong since the time of the present Emperor’s father. Now the population was getting more and more educated and the church was starting to lose the grip it had once had on the people’s minds.

The Asesina, Summers and that old fool of a priest Giles, they’d needed to be eliminated. No doubt Giles had poisoned the girl’s mind with his progressive ideas. Then the girl had been kidnapped by the British who’d no doubt filled her mind with idea’s not fitting for a good servant of the church. Had it been a coincidence that the Asesina’s best friend, a Jewish virgin no less had suddenly fallen pregnant. No, Higgins shook his head, he could see the hand of outside agents in all this.

Others may see the hand of God in the girl’s pregnancy, but Higgins knew the truth. There was no God, maybe there had been one once, long ago, but now… No, any god there might have been had grown bored with His creations and had left many, many years ago. He knew where the Hellgates led, he knew that Earth seemed to be at a nexus point for these…these ‘tunnels’ through space. The old fools that he worked for could never believe the way he did…only he could save the world and to do that he must remain alive and free whatever the cost. Slowly Higgins picked up the phone and let his fingers start to dial, he had a lot of calls to make.

0=0=0=0

Walking into Valle del Sol railroad station, Mary and Dawn looked like exactly what a young upper class girl and her coloured maid should look like; they halted in the middle of the concourse.

“There,” Mary passed Dawn some banknotes, “go to the window and buy two second class tickets for Portland.”

“What!?” Dawn spun around to look at her ‘maid’.

“Don’t make a fuss,” Mary smiled, “people are watching.”

“But I don’t want to go to Oregon,” pleaded Dawn, “I want to go find my sister…and Oregon’s full of redskins.” 

“Who says we’re actually going to Portland?” Mary raised an eyebrow and watched the penny drop as Dawn realised what was going on.

“Oh, I see,” Dawn scanned the concourse, “you’re trying to throw anyone trailing us off our scent.”

“That’s right, sweetie,” Mary smiled encouragingly before giving Dawn a little push towards the ticket window, “now you just go an’ get them tickets,”.

Keeping an eye on her young charge, Mary realised that the girl was quite smart and could be pretty single minded. If she let on too soon that; yes, they were going to Portland and; yes she was a British agent who was taking her to British territory. Then she could expect a lot of screaming and scratching and bruised shins. One step at a time she told herself as she watched the girl walk back to her holding the tickets; one step at a time.

0=0=0=0

The shuttle dropped like a stone from the belly of the Sidhe ship, aboard Commander K-Cops sat firmly strapped into his acceleration couch along with his detachment of marines and the expedition’s medical team. The pilot skilfully brought the craft to within feet of the prairie before engaging the shuttle's grav-thrusters.

They would fly at barely grass top height across the region of this planet known as the Indian Territories of central North America. The route had been chosen to lessen the likelihood of being spotted by this planet’s primitive radar systems. Their only cause for concern was when they reached the Mexican Empire, here they risked detection from more up to date systems. K-Cop was confident that the shuttle’s stealth design and jammers would hide the ship from prying eyes both human and electronic. They would reach their destination in about thirty minutes, and then they could start their search for the human female.

0=0=0=0

“There’s a village or something up ahead,” called Cordelia, it was late afternoon and they’d need to stop somewhere for the night soon.

“You said you’d got money,” Buffy said tiredly, “enough for the three of us to get a room?”

“If you don’t mind sleeping in some flee bitten roadside tavern?” Cordelia replied in disgust.

“It’ll have to do,” Buffy turned to look at Willow, she was still asleep, that couldn’t be natural, maybe they should find a doctor or something.

“You think five hundred Pesos’ will be enough?”

“Yeah, sure,” nodded Buffy, “now let’s stop and find somewhere to rest.”

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

8.

“There it is again,” Technical Corporal Rios pointed to her radar screen.

Her supervisor stood behind her and watched over her shoulder, sure enough the blip had reappeared heading south-west over the mountains. The radar station had been built in the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains so it would be easier to pick up raiders coming in from the sea. After the attack on Valle del Sol last year there had been a lot of questions asked about the defences in northern California. The radar station was part of the answer to those questions.

“Height? Speed?” asked the supervisor.

“Hard to say,” replied Rios hesitantly, “it keeps popping on and off the screen; I think maybe they’re flying following the contours of the ground. Its going fast…maybe Mach one?”

The Warrant Officer, who was Rios’ supervisor, stood up straight and thought quickly, Rios was one of his best operators, a guess from her was like a fact from anyone else. Maybe the British had some new type of recon aircraft, though why it was so low he didn’t know. Anyway he wasn’t paid to think, that’s what officers were for, he passed the information up the line to the controller, she could make all the hard decisions.

0=0=0=0

“Sir?” the shuttle pilot spoke quietly so only the K-Cops could hear.

“What?” Commander K-Cops shifted in his seat and turned to look at the pilot.

“Sir, we’re passing through a radar beam, it’s a particularly powerful one,” he explained a worried frown on his face.

“Any danger of it picking us up?” K-Cops studied the readout on the pilot’s sensor screen.

“Normally I’d say not,” the pilot paused to adjust one of his many controls, “but there seems to be some sort of interference coming from this town here.”

Looking to where the pilot pointed on the navigation display K-Cops realised that the interference was coming from their target.

“Any idea what’s causing it?”

“Well, sir,” the pilot studied his instrumentation carefully for several seconds before answering, “if I didn’t know better I’d say its like the interference you get from a wormhole and its getting stronger.”

Thinking quickly K-Cops tried to decide what to do, planet based wormholes were rare but not unheard of and on this planet they’d already charted half a dozen of them.

“Will it affect our stealth systems?” K-Cops wanted to know.

“If it gets any stronger,” mused the pilot, “I think that radar beam might burn through and…” the pilot stopped talking for a moment, “Sir! I have two contacts closing with us from the south-west, probable aircraft.

0=0=0=0

Easing back on the throttles of his Saab A21M, Captain Fidel Castro smiled as he and his wingman headed north-east at 5000 metres and 600kph. He’d been promoted after the British attack last year; he’d been the only pilot to have got his aircraft airborne. He’d even managed to shoot down one of the British raiders before he’d been shot down by a British jet fighter. Soon after he’d been transferred to Number Eleven Squadron (Snake Eyes), an elite squadron that were the first to receive the new Saabs bought from the Swedes.

He listened closely to what the fighter controller was saying, he found her calm contralto so much easier to understand than a male controller’s voice, it seemed to cut cleanly through the chatter of an air battle which could mean the difference between life and death for a pilot.

“Target, five kilometres north east at 3000 metres,” the controller informed him, “Do you have visual? Over.”

Looking off in the direction the controller had indicated Castro strained his eyes.

“Red-snake one negative, over,” he replied.

“Red-snake two negative, over,” added his wingman.

“Target climbing, now 4000 metres, speed 1000kph, same heading,” Castro could hear the tension in the controller’s voice, “Do you have visual? Over.”

Again Castro squinted, trying to make out any movement against the ground, the sun was rapidly sinking into the ocean; if they didn’t intercept soon it would be too dark. He was just about to reply in the negative when he saw it. A dark shadow against the greens and browns of the mountains, it was fast. His mind quickly worked out speeds and vectors; if he didn’t turn now the intruder would be past him and at the speed it was flying he and his wingman would never catch it.

“Tally!” called Castro, “Unidentified aircraft, I’m turning to follow,” he spoke quickly into his oxygen mask’s microphone, “TALLY HO!”

“Roger, Red-snake one,” the controller’s voice came back, “you have permission to engage as soon as you’re in range…good hunting. Out!”

Pushing his throttle forward, Castro turned his aircraft; he sensed more than saw his wingman follow him around as they went into a shallow dive. Pushing the throttle right up against the wall he felt the aircraft start to shudder as it picked up speed. The dark shape of the intruder was slowly overhauling him, if he didn’t get into range soon the enemy aircraft would escape.

Airspeed now read 875kph, well over the Saab’s supposed maximum speed. Castro started to wonder whether his aircraft would fall apart before he got into range to do the intruder any damage. Just as the interloper looked as if he’d get away, a memory surfaced in Castro’s mind. He remembered the briefings he’d been given about the Saab’s armament.

Although the twin 20mm Bofors cannon were lighter than the four 23mm guns on his old La-9 they were more powerful with a longer range. Flicking the cover up off the firing button on his control stick, Castro fired. He watched as the vibrations from his gun threatened to shake the teeth from his head and long lines of tracer reached, oh so slowly towards the intruder. Then just as he thought he’d missed, Castro saw pieces fly off the intruder and a long trail of dark smoke stain the sky behind the speeding craft.

“Intruder hit and damaged, over!” Castro tried to keep his voice under control when all he wanted to do was yell to the world just what a good pilot he was.

“Roger, Red-snake one,” the controller’s voice sounded like she’d been cheering too, “target is losing speed and altitude, can you continue pursuit? Over.”

Opening his mouth to say ‘yes’, Castro stopped himself, he pulled back on his throttle and levelled off at about 3000 metres, his aircraft still vibrating frighteningly. Looking around he saw that the sun was on the horizon now making it difficult to see in the direction the intruder was heading.

“No, control,” Castro replied sadly, “I think my aircraft has suffered structural damage and visibility is becoming difficult, request permission to return to base. Over.”

“Roger, Red-snake one,” the controller said after a pause, “you are cleared to return to base.” There was another pause before the controller spoke again, this time in a less professional tone, “I think, Captain, that you can claim a ‘possible’ and if its confirmed you can say you’re the first pilot to win a jet versus jet combat by the Mexican airforce; well done, control out!”

0=0=0=0

The little nameless village had one dusty street; there was a cantina, a church, an old fashioned general store and a doctor’s office. Pulling the car to a halt outside the doctor’s office Cordelia watched as Buffy helped her friend out onto the street.

“Can you find us some clothes to wear?” asked Buffy as she held up Willow who looked incredibly pale and drawn, “Then we’ll need somewhere to stay.”

“Sure,” Cordelia nodded her head; even she had become concerned for the health of the red-haired girl, “here.’ 

Pulling a ring from her finger Cordelia passed it to Buffy.

“Get her to put it on,” she instructed, “it looks like a wedding ring.” Cordelia watched Buffy’s puzzled frown, “It’ll stop people asking too many questions and you better think up a story why her husband’s not about.”

“Oh god, yes!” Buffy took the ring from Cordelia’s hand and smiled her thanks.

After watching the two girls go into the doctor’s office, Cordelia turned the car round and drove back to the general store. Parking on the street outside she checked her make-up in the rear-view mirror; it was good enough for these country bumpkins. Stepping out onto the street, she tutted in disgust at the dust, flies and horse dropping before making her way towards the store.

Making an entrance like she owned the town (which she probably could) Cordelia looked around the store. It was one of those old fashioned places where you could buy anything from clothes to beans to a plough. Sniffing at the smell of kerosene and coffee as she made her way further into the store.

First things first, they were all going to need clothes, she had absolutely no intention of ruining the dress she was presently wearing, it had cost her father nearly fifteen hundred Pesos and had come all the way from Paris…in France! No something more suited to the clothes she wore when she went to the family rancho and went riding would be better suited to their present needs.

Walking through the store she soon found the ‘clothing department’, it was rather disappointing but it would have to do. Picking out jeans and plaid shirts for herself and Buffy (years of ridiculing other girl’s figures had given Cordelia a good eye for sizes) she hesitated over the rack of ‘cowboy’ boots that stood nearby. She picked out a pair for herself but she’d no idea what size Buffy would take. Oh well, she thought, Buffy had been wearing loafers so those would have to do for now. After picking out some rather old fashioned sets of underwear Cordelia piled her purchases on the counter in front of the shopkeeper. The old man looked from her to the pile of clothes and back again, shaking his head he started to ring up the goods on his old manual till.

“Do you have any clothing for a woman who is in a delicate condition?” Cordelia asked haughtily.

The shopkeeper looked at Cordelia a puzzled frown spreading slowly across his face; he mouthed the words ‘delicate condition’; a lantern appeared above his head (this village was too backward to have electric light).

“Ah! Si,” he chuckled to himself, “a ‘delicate condition’? You better ask my wife,” he pointed across the store to where an older woman was talking to one of the local farmer’s wives.

Turning, Cordelia progressed across the store rather like a galleon ploughing through the ocean.

0=0=0=0

Ten minutes later Cordelia was sitting behind the steering wheel of the car wondering where all the money had gone, she had maybe fifteen or twenty Pesos’ left. That wouldn’t buy them even one room for the night let alone a meal, what could she do? Having rebelled against the idea of not buying some of the clothes she'd selected, after all what would people think? They’d think that Cordelia Chase had no money and that was unthinkable; unfortunately it was also true.

Sighing, Cordelia closed her purse and looked up and down the street, it felt odd for someone to be relying on her, odd but somehow kind of empowering, but she could always start the car turn round and head for home. Her father would be easy to convince that her tale of kidnap and traffic violations weren’t her fault. Once Papa was convinced, she mused; the police could easily be convinced of her innocence. Her hand moved towards the ignition.

No! Cordelia’s hand fell to rest on her thigh. Alright so she’d be able to get away with this but what did she have to look forward to? A child every two years for the next ten or fifteen years that’s what she had to look forward to! Would this little adventure be the only daring thing she’d done in her life? No, it would not! Sitting back in her seat she straightened her shoulders and looked out the windscreen with head held high. Fame and fortune called but in the immediate future she needed money to finance this adventure.

Visions of the film rights to the book she was going to write about being kidnapped then forced to lead a life of crime filled her head. The flashing lights of photographers as she walked along the red carpet to the world première flickered in her eyes as she stared out the window. Of course nothing would be here fault, she had been forced into it by those two sapphist bean flickers who had jumped into her car…and what had Papa been thinking buy her a saloon anyway?

Her eye roved up and down the street until it came to rest on the little post office across the street from the store. A plan started to form in her mind, not a very good plan; for all her expensive education Cordelia had a very simple outlook on life; what she wanted she tended to get. Looking down into the foot well of the passenger’s seat she saw the gun with its long barrel; she’d been surprised that something so big looking had made so little noise when it’d gone off earlier. Picking up the gun she hefted it her hand, it was big and heavy and lethal looking, it had certainly frightened her so…

0=0=0=0

Bursting into the post office Cordelia held the gun out in front of her.

“HANDS UP!” she cried, “This is a stick up! Give me the money!”

Even to her ears that sounded a bit lame, she’d have to think up something better for the next time she did this.

0=0=0=0

Sitting on the bench outside the doctor’s office Buffy let Willow rest her head against her shoulder. The doctor had seemed to believe the story about Willow’s husband being a soldier who was up in the mountains fighting the Chumash Indians. He’d examined Willow and said everything looked as it should be. He explained that Willow was feeling so tired because of an iron deficiency and had given her a bottle of iron pills, even after Buffy said that they couldn’t pay. 

The doctor had shrugged and said it was the least he could do for the wife of a soldier who was even now in a life or death struggle with those murdering red savages. There hadn’t even been the flicker of a smile on the doctor’s face when he’d said it; but he had given Buffy an exaggerated wink as he’d shown her out of the office.

Looking up the street Buffy wondered if Cordelia would wait for them, she had to admit that had she been in the rich girl’s place she’d have headed straight for the nearest police barracks. In a way Buffy wished the girl would; she’d have an excuse to give herself up and, well, give up; she didn’t know what to do and she didn’t know how to look after her friend. They had no money, no friends everyone they’d loved and relied on was dead or gone; she didn’t want to be in charge any more. Buffy wished she could curl up and rest her head on her Mama’s lap and be a little girl again. Her ears picked up the sound of the car as it sped down the street towards them. It slid to a halt in a great cloud of dust in front of the doctor’s office; Buffy stood up and helped Willow to her feet.

“QUICK!” called Cordelia from the car, “Get in!”

After helping Willow into the back seat, Buffy climbed into the front moving the bag of money as she sat down. Almost before she’d closed the door, Cordelia had floored the accelerator and they were bouncing down the street at high speed.

“Hey!” cried Willow from the back seat where she held on for dear life, “Much more of this and I’ll give birth right now!”

“Oh stop whining!” ordered Cordelia.

Just as she was about to tell Cordelia to slow down the bag of money on her lap registered in Buffy’s mind. Picking up a bundle of bank notes she held them in front of her face.

“Where…?” Buffy gasped.

“Post office,” Cordelia guided the car around a corner at high speed, Willow whimpered from the back seat.

“You didn’t?” Buffy saw the gun resting on Cordelia’s lap, “You did!”

“Well,” Cordelia nodded her head, “we’ve got to eat and I’ve run out of money!”

“Hold on!” Buffy glanced over her shoulder to where Willow was in fact already holding on, “We’re making a get-away!”

0=0=0=0

Crawling from the wreck of the shuttle Commander K-Cops dragged the survival pack behind him while he wondered at his own survival; logically he should be dead like the rest of the landing party. The inside of the shuttle was a charnel house of roughly butchered bodies. The two contacts had turned out to be native aircraft; just as the pilot had said. Instead of escaping any pursuit the shuttle had started to shake and fall apart as the native’s kinetic energy rounds punched into the craft. Most of the marines and medical team had been slaughtered in the first few moments, by some miracle the pilot and himself had survived. The pilot had struggled to bring the shuttle down safely only to die when the craft collided with a boulder that stuck out from the surface of an otherwise flat meadow. 

Having crawled away from the shuttle K-Cops watched as the fire took hold and reduced the vessel to a multi-million credit funeral pyre. Shaking his head he got unsteadily to his feet; the natives would be here soon. He couldn’t allow himself to be captured and he still had his mission to complete, he needed to get as far away from here as fast as he could. Slinging the pack onto his back, he started to trot off into the gathering gloom of the evening, if he could keep going he’d be several leagues away from here come the dawn.

0=0=0=0

Watching the country side roll past the window Mary let the swaying of the railroad carriage lull her into a doze. Having been up since early this morning and after escaping death by the skin of her teeth this morning, she’d been on the run ever since. The girl, Dawn, had already dozed off next to her. Mary thought that maybe they should have paid for a sleeper compartment. But, she didn’t know if they’d have enough money, she’d need to be careful until she could get more and that wouldn’t be until she could contact her SOE control officer. Mary still had the gold sovereigns sewed into her underwear but she didn’t want to use those until they were well into the Indian Territories.

0=0=0=0

Walking through the squad room on his way home, Lieutenant Soto glanced over to where several of the more junior detectives where standing around a teletype. He walked over to see what all the fuss was about.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he approached.

Holding a piece of printout in his hand Sergeant Castillo, an older more experienced detective smiled and shook his head.

“I thought I’d seen or heard everything,” he chuckled as he passed the printout to Soto.

Smiling Soto had to admit it was unusual. It appeared that the post office in the little town of Santa Antonio had been held up by a girl; she’d been wearing a dress that must have cost about a thousand Pesos’ (or so claimed the post master). The girl had been waving an enormous pistol about and had put a bullet into the wall above the man’s head when he’d refused to hand over the cash.

“How much did she get away with?” Soto asked.

“Three or four thousand,” replied the sergeant, he sighed, “I better get out there I suppose,” he said miserably, “I’ll not be seeing my wife tonight.”

“Don’t worry,” Soto grinned at the older man, “I’ll give her your love when I see her!”

“Me too!” called another detective from across the room.

“That’s all I need,” grumbled the sergeant good naturedly, “I’m surrounded by jokers!”

“You be careful,” called Soto as he headed for the door, “this ‘bandida' sounds real dangerous…buenas noches,” he called as he headed out the door.

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

9.

The train lurched to a halt tumbling Mary from her seat and waking her from a fitful sleep. She’d been dreaming about killer nuns and for a moment and couldn’t work out whether this was all part of her dream or not. The sound of breaking glass and rifle fire soon convinced her that, unfortunately this was real life.

“Dawn!” she called from her position on the floor of the carriage.

Looking around she saw the Anglo-Mexican girl cowering under her seat her eyes wide with terror and tears streaking her face. Poor kid, Mary thought, as she crawled towards the girl; she was only fourteen and she’d had almost everyone in her life killed. Mary wondered for an instant whether she’d be able to cope, she lay next to the girl and wrapped her arms around her.

More rifle fire broke the windows of the carriage sending sharp shards of glass flying through the air. People screamed as they were hit by either bullets or pieces of glass. Suddenly the carriage lights went out, there were more screams as somewhere a machine gun started to fire.

“Listen, honey,” Mary hugged the girl tightly and stroked her hair, “you’ve been real brave so far. I’m sorry but I’m gonna have to ask you to be brave again, can you do that for me?”

Feeling the girl nod her head, Mary shifted her grip and took Dawn’s hand tightly in her own. Flinching as machine gun bullets ripped through the side of the carriage, there was more screaming as passengers who’d not kept their heads down had them shot off.

“Look, what we’re gonna do is this,” Mary’s hand searched for her bag and the pistol it contained, she sighed with relief as she found the bag’s strap and pulled it towards her. “We’re gonna crawl to the exit,” Mary covered the girl with her body as another burst of machine gun fire tore thought the carriage, this time there were only a few screams. “They’re only firing from one side so we jump down on the other and we run. You understand?” Again Mary felt Dawn nod, “Good girl, you just keep hold of my hand and run…alright, let’s go.”

Leading the way through the slaughter house that was once a railroad car Mary led Dawn over and around the bodies of their fellow passengers, she felt the girl tense each time they came to a body, which was distressingly often. What the hell was going on? Mary asked herself, she tried to think back to her last intelligence briefing. Most of what she’d been told concerned the United States and Mexico, but, she did remember something about Oregon; now what was it?

The firing had slackened off a little; there were only the occasional short bursts of fire now. But, more worryingly, she could hear men talking in an odd language that she assumed was the local Indian tongue. Dawn and herself were at the door that led to the outside world, it hung half open with a man in a railroad company uniform slumped half in and half out of the carriage. Mary put the strap of her bag over her head and across her body; thrusting her hand inside she quickly found her pistol. It was a German type, easily concealed, small and light. It fired the standard 9mm cartridge and was totally unsuited to fighting men with rifles and machine guns, but it was all she had so it would have to do.

“You ready?” Mary glanced at Dawn as she hauled back on the pistol’s slide and loading the first round.

Dawn nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Grasping the pistol in her right hand and Dawn’s in her left she jumped down from the carriage. It was a little further than she’d expected, she heard Dawn cry out softly but she quickly recovered and followed her across the grass and into the night.

0=0=0=0

“What’s going on?” Dawn and Mary lay in a fold in the ground and watched the train burn about half a mile away.

“Best I can guess,” gasped Mary, “them was Communist Militia.”

“Communists?” Dawn wasn’t really any the wiser, “Russians?”

“No,” Mary smiled in the dark, “look,” she tried to explain, “these Injuns up here have never had what you an’ me would call a Gov’ment. They’re all split up into tribal groups who pretty much do what they want.” The briefing she’d been given was coming back to her even as she spoke. “Every time the gov’ment tries to organise things, well the whole place just splits into two, three sometimes four factions. These guys are probably Commies, which means they get money and weapons offa the reds, whether they believe all that Lenin stuff is another thing, right?”

“No Russians then?” Dawn sounded relieved.

“No Russians,” agreed Mary.

The night was mostly clear, there was a half moon shining down on the undulating plain and the sky seemed full of stars. In the distance the train burned and Mary fancied she could see men moving in front of the flames. Standing up, Mary looked around; in the distance she could see the dark shadow of what was probably a wood and further away she could see the dim lights of what might be a farm or ranch.

“Come on,” she pulled Dawn to her feet, “we better get moving.”

“Where to?” Dawn climbed wearily to her feet.

“Away from here,” Mary tried to inject some levity into her voice, “look, its cold an’ the walking will help keep us warm. The further we get from them,” Mary jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the train, “the better.”

As they walked over the mercifully flat grassland, Mary wondered what she should do next. If only she could get to a radio or even a telephone; she could call for help and someone would send a plane or a chopper to pick them up; mary sighed resignedly, she might as well be asking for the moon.

0=0=0=0

High above Oregon one of the stars moved as the Sidhe ship moved into orbit over northern California. The Captain had made the decision to move his ship from its original orbit shortly after they’d lost contact with the shuttle containing the First Officer and the extraction team.

“Do we have a fix on the First Officer’s transponder?” asked the Captain as he stood on the bridge watching the planet below him turn slowly in the night.

“Yes Kiptin,” Second Officer V-Okehc looked up from the scanner display he’d been watching.

“When can we extract him?” the Captain turned away from the planet to look at V-Okehc.

“We’ll be within transporter range any time now Kiptin.” V-Okehc glanced once more at the scanner, “But I’d recommend we hold off any rescue attempt until Mr K-Cops can position himself further away from the crash sight.”

“Why?” K-Rik would have raised an eyebrow had he had any.

“Sir,” replied V-Okehc, “the area is crawling with native troops looking for the crashed shuttle, by dawn the sky will be full of their aircraft…”

“So?” the Captain paced over to where the Second Officer stood, “They’re nothing but… primitives what threat do they hold to…us?”

“May I reminded the Kiptin,” V-Okehc announced formally, “that it was a ‘primitive’ aircraft that shot down the shuttle and this group of natives is believed to have nuclear weapons so…”

“There’s a chance…however small…that…they can blow us out of the sky!" K-Rik smiled and nodded his head. “Well done…Number Two for not letting me push you into a course of action you thought unsafe.”

“Thank-you, sir,” replied the younger officer.

“Contact Mr K-Cops,” K-Rik walked across the bridge towards the lift that would take him back to his cabin, “to get away from the crash sight; we’ll try to pick him up tomorrow night. I’ll be in my cabin, don’t hesitate to call me if there are any developments.”

0=0=0=0

They had flown out to the crash site just after dawn; Captain Castro stood next to the civilian in the tweed jacket and studied the strange craft that lay in the meadow. The academic turned to Castro and smiled.

“I’m told that we have you to thank for this bounty, Captain?” the man took off his glasses and polished them with a red spotted handkerchief.

“Yes,” Castro nodded his head as he studied the aircraft intently, “oddly this is the first time I’ve actually got a good look at it.”

“Is that so?” the academic looked at Castro curiously, “but I thought…”

“Yes,” Castro took a step or two closer to the craft, “I never really got that much of a look at it.”

“How so?” the Academic took a note book from his pocket.

“It was as if…” Castro tried to order his thoughts before beginning again, “...it was as if when you looked straight at it disappeared…sort of. It’s hard to explain.”

“Please try,” the academic smiled encouragingly.

“I saw it more because it blocked out things in the background,” explained Castro, “and of course its movement sort of drew the eye towards it.”

“Yes, yes,” the academic nodded his head eagerly, “obviously some sort of advanced camouflage system, maybe even a form of invisibility. What happened when you hit it?”

“Ha!” Castro laughed, “Nothing but good luck really; I thought we’d lost it but I gave it a burst with the cannon anyway. Pure fluke that I hit it. But when I did the thing became more…more, tangible? You know what I mean.”

“I think I do Captain,” the academic made more notes in his note book.

“Then there was a lot of smoke and I had to break off contact,” Castro shrugged resignedly.

“Why?” asked the academic, “Was it something…” he gestured towards the craft.

“No, no,” Castro laughed, “I was frightened that my aircraft was about to fall apart,” he grinned at the tweed clad man, “I’d had to push it beyond its limits to catch the bastard you see?”

The two men stood in silence for a minute as they watched Air Force technicians ready the craft to be lifted onto the back of a truck and taken away.

“Will it tell us much?” Castro asked quietly.

“Oh yes,” the academic nodded his head firmly, “but I doubt whether we’ll be able to duplicate any of it for years yet.”

“Oh, well,” Castro turned to go, “I’ll not be flying invisible super fast fighters just yet?”

“I’m afraid not,” the academic turned to go with Castro. “Look, I’m Doctor Espinoza, by the way,” the two men shook hands. “I was wondering if you’d like to join the team who will make the initial study of this craft,” he saw the reluctance on Castro’s face, “it would only be for a short while, six months at most. I know how you fighter types hate to be parted from your aircraft…but it would be useful to have a flyer’s point of view while we study it.”

“Well,” Castro shrugged, “if you think I’ll be useful and you can convince the air force. I expect I could try and help, although I’m not sure how.”

“I’m sure you’ll be invaluable, Captain Castro,” Espinoza patted him on the back and started to explain all the things they hoped to discover.

0=0=0=0

Seeing the riders on the horizon Dawn gave a little cry of alarm, it was just after dawn and the clear air gave the impression that the men were closer than they actually were. Turning at Dawn’s cry Mary spotted the riders seconds later, there appeared to be about a dozen of them. They turned and started to canter towards the two women.

“Oh, shit,” Mary gasped as she looked around desperately for somewhere to hide.

There was no cover they could possibly get to before the horsemen overtook them, no where for them to stand and fight and have any chance of survival.

“Damn them to hell!” Mary spat as she readied her pistol.

They had tried so hard…she had tried so hard to save the girl, but every time she’d thought she’d got them both to safety something would happen to screw with her plan. Mary looked up at the riders they would be here in a minute or two. Surrender was out of the question, she knew what Indians did to black women, Dawn might survive if someone paid a ransom for her, otherwise…

“What do we do?” Dawn looked at Mary with resigned eyes, “Do we run?”

“Where to?” Mary walked over to the teenager and wrapped her arm around her shoulder, “I’m sorry honey,” she said into the girl’s hair, “maybe you’d have done better if I’d left you behind, but…”

Feeling Dawn’s answering hug Mary felt marginally better about what she had to do.

“Close your eyes sweetheart,” Mary placed the muzzle of her pistol against Dawn’ head, her finger started to tighten on the trigger.

“Ma’am!”

Mary froze; one of the riders had called to her in English and with an English sounding accent no less.

“Ma’am?” the riders were within a few yards of her now.

Looking up at the horsemen Mary began to notice little details about their equipment. Although at a distance they looked just like any other bunch of tribal militia, up close she could see they were all carrying the same type of rifle. Their horse furniture had a more military look to it and the way the men sat their horses, well it just didn’t look right.

“Cornet Jameson, ma’am,” the young white man touched the brim of his campaign hat with his finger, “Third Light Horse, were you passengers from the train? Can we be of any assistance?”

“Son,” Mary didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, “you are one sight for sore eyes,” she decided to cry, “oh Lordie, yes please. You wouldn’t happen to know where the closest British consul is?”

“Yes ma’am,” the young officer got down off his horse and handed Mary his canteen, he looked at Dawn and then back at Mary. “I thought you might be Mexican.”

“Oh no son,” Mary drank from the canteen after seeing another soldier hand his to Dawn, “send me back to Blighty or better still, somewhere sunny!”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the officer gave her a puzzled smile then ordered a couple of his men to take the two women up behind them on their horses.

As they rode away across the grass sea Mary reflected that life was full of surprises, five minutes ago she’d thought she was going to die, now, with a little luck she would live to spy again.

0=0=0=0

Studying the file on his desk Lieutenant Soto, took a sip of hot coffee and sighed in appreciation, no one made coffee like the station sergeant; it blasted the cobwebs from the mind and made you feel like you could run a marathon. Back to work, Soto smiled to himself, although what he had to smile about he didn’t know. The file held everything he’d been able to find out about the Rosenberg killings and the death of Padre Rupert. From the statements of the Rosenberg’s neighbours he’d been able to piece together a timeline of what had happened that morning.

At approximately nine o’clock that morning Doctor Morales, the Rosenberg’s family doctor, had been called to the house. Then at about twelve-thirty a large black limo had parked outside the house and a man in a clerical suit had walked towards the house accompanied by two nuns and this was were it got weird. The man knocked on the door, the door was opened by Morales, or so Soto assumed because his body had been found near the door. Either the man in the suit or one of the nuns had shot the doctor then all three had gone inside. What happened next was speculation but was more or less confirmed by the forensic evidence.

The maid, known only to the neighbours as ‘Mary’ and a teenage white girl had run from the kitchen door and escaped over the backyard fence…after exchanging shots with one of the nuns or possibly the man in the clerical suit. The maid and the girl had then vanished; a search of the maid’s apartment had turned up evidence of a hurried departure. Soto was fairly sure that the reports of a white girl with a black maid at Valle del Sol railroad station were this maid and the teenager. Who the teenager was Soto wasn’t one-hundred percent sure, but the evidence appeared to point to Dawn Summers sister of Buffy Summers.

Back to the Rosenberg house.

Within minutes of the nuns and the ‘cleric’ entering the house they had shot Senora Rosenberg and were in the process of kidnapping Willow Rosenberg. Next Buffy Summers turned up on the scene. It would appear that she disarmed one of the nuns took the nun’s gun and shot her in the head at close range. Then she and the Rosenberg girl had run off. Where to no one could say but it was rumoured that they might have kidnapped the daughter of local business man, Señor Chase.

However that couldn’t be confirmed. What was confirmed was that Padre Rupert, the doctor and Senora Rosenberg had all been killed by the same type of bullet from the same type of gun. They had all been shot by professionals who had either been wearing gloves or who’d not touched anything at the crime scenes. Soto’s one ‘person of interest’, Cardinal Higgins had disappeared off the face of the world. The church claiming that he had gone to Rome, although no one fitting his description had boarded an aircraft or ship out of the country.

Why anyone would want to kill Senora Rosenberg, Doctor Morales or even Padre Rupert (who Soto had discovered hadn’t been molesting any of his young charges) was beyond him. It was, however, evident that the three murders were connected in some way, but how and why? A knock on his office door snapped Soto out of his useless musing.

“Come in,” he called, the door opened to reveal Detective Sergeant Henry Castillo.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Lieutenant?” 

Castillo hovered in the door; he was a slightly overweight man in his early forties, his dark hair was beginning to recede and he seemed to have a permanent five o’clock shadow. It was rumoured that he’d married a prostitute, which was why he’d been transferred from Los Angles to Valle del Sol. Soto had met Senora Castillo a couple of times; she seemed a nice enough woman, maybe ten years younger than her husband, but that wasn’t unusual with cops. They had two young children a boy and a girl. Soto had never asked about Castillo’s wife’s past, it wasn’t his business and he wasn’t close enough to Castillo for it to be mentioned over a beer. Fidgeting in the doorway Castillo looked as if he was going to run off, Soto frowned and wondered if people were that afraid of him.

“Come in, Henry, sit down,” Soto closed the file and smiled at the sergeant, he was getting nowhere with his own case perhaps it would help clear his mind to help with someone else’s; “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering,” Castillo began, “if I could have a look at the photo’s of the Summers girl and her friend.”

“Sure,” Soto passed over the photos, they were good quality colour ones from the school records office.

Running his hand over his rumpled suit Castillo studied the pictures for a couple of minutes and then sighed.

“They fit the description,” he handed the photographs back to Soto.

“These girls have been spotted?” Soto almost got up ready to dash out of his office; he forced himself to remain calm, could it be that he could crack this case after all?

“Well, yes and no, Lieutenant,” Castillo shifted uneasily in his seat, the Lieutenant wasn’t going to like this, “you’ve heard of ‘Los tres bandidas de la muchacha’?”

“The ‘Three Girl Bandits’, yes?” Soto’s eyes fell to the photo’s on his desk, “The gang that’s robbed four country post offices in the last ten days?”

Pointing at the photographs Castillo shrugged helplessly.

“You don’t mean?” Soto couldn’t believe it, this was ridicules, Castillo nodded his head slowly, “Who’s the third?”

Getting out his pocket book Castillo opened it to a well thumbed page and read out the name.

“Señorita Cordelia Chase,” Castillo closed his book and put it back in his pocket.

“The girl that Summers and Rosenberg are supposed to have kidnapped?” Soto buried his face in his hands.

“The descriptions all fit,” Castillo tried not to smile too widely, “it would appear, Lieutenant that our cases are connected.”

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Walking across the almost empty parking lot Cordelia glanced around at the dry, brush clad hills that surrounded Lake Isabella. Arriving at the beat up old truck they were now using, she opened the door and picked up the bag of clothes that lay behind the driver’s seat. Sighing she closed the door again; Buffy had made her swap her bright red saloon for this battered old pick-up because she said the car ‘stood out’ too much.

Of course it stood out, Cordelia shook her head as she turned away and started to walk back towards the ‘cabin’ where they had set up home. Standing out was the whole idea about having a bright red sports car (in her case a saloon, but, what the heck the principle was the same). It was so people could see you and go ‘Wow! Isn’t that girl pretty and rich and…’ Buffy had claimed that it made them too easy for the police to spot. Ha! What did she know about style the little middle-class sapphist slut!

No, that was unkind, this was an unusual thought to pop into Cordelia’s mind, but she actually liked Buffy and Willow now she’d got to know them. Yeah, sure, they had kidnapped her and held her hostage…at first. But, they hadn’t been near as angry as she’d thought they’d be when she’d robbed that first post office. Now back at the cabin, she put her hand on the door handle and opened the door, walking she was just in time to hear Willow say…

“…how’re you thighs?”

“Hot and pink,” Buffy replied from across the table where they both sat.

“Do you want me to rub on some lotion?”

“Should I come back later?” Cordelia called from by the door, “It’s no bother, you know if you two want to be alone.”

“No, no!” Willow frowned at Cordelia, “Buffy spilt some hot tea on her leg is all.”

“Yeah, right,” Cordelia smirked as she threw the bag of clothes onto her bed, “Look you don’t have to pretend with me, I know you’re sapphist lovers, come on you sleep together.”

“Only because there’s only two beds and you insisted you have to sleep alone.” Buffy was never quite sure whether Cordelia was joking about the sapphist thing or not.

“Whatever,” Cordelia shrugged and walked over to the table; she saw Willow had been counting the money, again, “how much?”

“Just over seven thousand Pesos,” Willow replied miserably, “its no where near enough.”

“Damn right its not!” Cordelia sniffed, that was hardly enough to buy her a new summer wardrobe.

“Yeah,” agreed Willow, “and when this little fella,” she rubbed her tummy, “pops out he’s gonna need stuff-whoever and whatever he is.”

Nodding her head in agreement Cordelia went back to the bed and started to unpack the bag, Willow had been an unexpected ally over the whole ‘armed robbery’ thing.

“Hey, girls,” Buffy said uncertainly, “there is the whole wacky notion of going to Los Angeles or somewhere and getting jobs.”

“Work!?” Cordelia stood up and looked at Buffy as if she was mad.

“Yeah!” agreed Willow forcefully, “How am I supposed to work in my condition?”

“Okay,” Buffy slumped defeated into her chair, “and about your condition, Willow.”

“What about it?” Willow started to place bundles of bank notes into a bag.

“I don’t think you should come with us on the next job,” Buffy almost sounded apologetic.

“But…!” Willow looked up at her friend in surprise.

“She’s right,” Cordelia pulled black robes from her bag, “I mean you’re a bit too,” Cordelia didn’t like using the word fat, but she would, “fat; and anyway I could only get two habits.”

“Oh,” Willow’s face fell when she realised she’d already lost the argument.

“And another thing,” Buffy reached across the table and patted Willow’s hand, “whoever heard of a pregnant nun?”

“Buffy’s right,” Cordelia held up one of the habits in front of her, “come on Buffy,” she threw the habit to her. “You better try this on; I think I’ll need to take up the hem.”

0=0=0=0

Having stopped the car at the side of highway Lieutenant Soto got out of the vehicle and looked around. The surrounding terrain was hilly, the grass still brown as the Fall rains hadn’t started yet. In the distance he could make out Lake Isabella and the small town of the same name. He glanced at the map he held in his hands, they were definitely on the right road.

Looking up again he saw Sergeant Castillo get out of the car and stretch before walking over to the little shrine to St Andres that stood by the road side. The countryside here abouts was dotted with the little shrines to the saint who was supposed to bring protection from earthquakes. Soto smiled to himself, well; if there ever was an earthquake around here it wouldn’t be St Andres’ fault.

“Are you sure about this Prof Phelps guy?” called Castillo as he walked back to the car.

“Got a better idea?” Soto called back.

The Valle del Sol police department had been using the services of a Professor Phelps in an attempt to mathematically predict where bank robbers would strike next. So far the results had not been conclusive. The Professor said that if he had one of the new analytical machines, a ‘computer’ as he called it, he could be a lot more precise. Soto shrugged to himself, he didn’t know about that, but this was the best clue they’d got so he would follow it.

“We better get on,” Soto climbed back into the car, “the sheriff will be waiting for us.”

0=0=0=0

“Does my butt look big in this,” Cordelia looked over her shoulder and tried to see her behind in the mirror over the sink.

“Good grief, Cordy,” Buffy smiled at the other girl’s antics, “it’s a nun’s habit what does it matter?”

“A girl has standards, Buffy,” Cordelia straightened her outfit and walked out into the main room, “I know you wouldn’t understand that, but some of us have.”

Buffy stuck out her tongue and made a rude noise.

“Okay,” Willow spread out the plan of the town on the table, “are you both sure you’ve got this right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Buffy replied with an exaggerated yawn, “we drive into town here,” her finger traced a road on the map. “We park outside the post office here,” her finger moved to the position of the little town’s post office; “go in do our thing then drive off this way. Come back here, pick you up,” she glanced at Willow, “then it’s off into the hills.”

“Simple,” agreed Cordelia with a smile, “we’ll be in and out before the sheriff has even hitched up his pants.”

“You know,” Willow was about to bring up a subject that neither of her friends liked thinking about, “we really need to start thinking about doing bank jobs.”

Looking from one friend to the other she could see the reluctance on their faces.

“Look girls,” she pleaded, “nearly half our take goes on expenses, these country post offices don’t carry a lot of cash and…”

“Look,” Buffy butted in, “we’ll talk about it tonight after the job. We know what we’re doing with post offices, banks are different.”

“Buffy’s right,” Cordelia chipped in, “we’ll talk about it later. You just be ready to go when we come back and don’t forget to leave the money for the rent, okay?”

“Okay,” agreed Willow.

“Guns?” asked Buffy.

“In the bag,” Cordelia patted the carpet bag in her hand.

“Spare ammo?” it was Buffy’s job to run through their rather simple check list before going out to ‘work’.

“In the car,” replied Cordelia.

“Okay lets saddle up,” Buffy put on her wimple and pulled her habit straight.

0=0=0=0

Standing on the boardwalk the sheriff hitched up his trousers and adjusted his gun belt as he studied the two detectives from the ‘big’ city.

“The hell you say?” the sheriff replied slowly to the news he’d just been given. “Los tres bandidas de la muchacha are headed here?”

“Si, Señor Sheriff,” confirmed Soto as he looked up into the big man’s grey eyes.

The Sheriff of Lake Isabella looked tougher than the average small town sheriff. Broad shouldered, almost two metres tall, he wore old jeans, cowboy boots and a uniform shirt topped off with a battered old Stetson. Around his waist that was just starting to show a little middle-aged spread, he wore an old style gun belt with an even older style Colt .45 revolver in the holster.

“Well then,” the sheriff moved slowly and purposefully towards his office, “I better call up my deputies, give these girls a warm welcome.”

“Ah! Sheriff,” Soto ran after the sheriff as he moved like a mountain towards his office; the sound of Soto’s own cowboy boots brought the sheriff to a halt, “we need to try and take these girls alive.”

“Alive you say?” rumbled the sheriff.

“Si,” nodded Soto, he looked at Castillo for support, the Sergeant nodded his head in agreement, “they are wanted in connection with several murders in Valle del Sol.”

“Well, I can’t speak for that,” the sheriff pulled open the door to his office, “you boys better come in and tell me all about it.”

0=0=0=0

Checking the magazine was full Buffy slammed it into the grip of her four-five automatic, Cordelia passed her a couple of spare magazines which Buffy put into the pocket of her habit; the pistol she could hide up her left sleeve until it was needed. Cordelia sat behind the wheel of the pick up and broke open the sawn off shotgun she carried, she checked down the barrels before loading a couple of cartridges. More cartridges nestled in her pockets.

“You know she’s right?” Cordelia hid the shotgun down by her leg before turning on the ignition, the engine rumbled powerfully under the hood.

“The banks you mean?”

Cordelia nodded her head.

“Yeah,” agreed Buffy with a sigh, “we’ll never get enough cash to be able to stop at this rate.”

Of the three girls Buffy was the most reluctant bandida, however, due to her Asesina skills and abilities she was also the most effective. Of the other two young women; Willow looked at it as her way of getting revenge on the world for what it had done to her life; she’d had her parents killed and had become spontaneously pregnant. Cordelia just saw it as a route to fame, fortune, shoes and dresses; of the three she was the most cold blooded of the girls.

“Remember,” Buffy spoke softly, “only shoot people if there’s no other choice and then try to wound not kill.”

“Yeah, okay,” Cordelia put the pick-up in gear, “you ready?”

Buffy nodded her head.

“Okay then,” Cordelia grinned, “let’s go!”

0=0=0=0

It had taken the sheriff half an hour to call in his six deputies; he stood outside the post office and pointed out the positions of his men to the two Valle del Sol detectives.

“I’ve got my boys posted up and down the main street,” he informed Soto and Castillo, “my plan is to let them in then take them on their way out.”

“Yes, good,” nodded Soto, that way it would be easier to get a conviction, “remember we need to take them alive.”

“Sure,” the sheriff spat into the dust of main street, “whatever you say dee-tective, but I’ve got a town to protect and these Los tres bandidas de la muchacha are a nasty bunch from what I’ve read.”

“Look,” sheriff,” Castillo turned towards the local lawman, “some of what you’ve heard has been exaggerated by the press. These girls have never actually killed anyone during a robbery.”

“Whatever,” the sheriff stepped down into the street and pointed to a cantina across the street, “I’ll be waiting in there if you want me.”

“Where do you want us?” called Soto as the man walked unhurriedly across the street.

“You pick your own ground, dee-tective,” the sheriff waved over his shoulder before disappearing into the cantina.

0=0=0=0

“Asshole,” breathed Soto, “who the hell does he think he is? Some sort of character from a Vaquero Movie?”

“Never mind,” Castillo smiled at his boss’ anger; Soto was a good cop but sometimes he needed to lighten up a little, “so where should we ‘choose our ground’?”

Looking up and down the street Soto saw that the little town was starting to come alive, people were beginning to fill the street going about their daily business. A few old pick-ups and jeeps passed along the street as other poorer farmers carried their goods to market on the backs of donkeys. Feeling that the sheriff would probably just as soon gun down the bandidas, Soto turned towards the post office.

“We wait in here,” he pointed towards the door, “pretend to be customers, with luck we can get the drop on them before that trigger happy vaquero can gun them down.”

Following Soto into the cool darkness of the post office Castillo checked the place out. The building was quite large for such a relatively small town, he suspected that the post office also served smaller towns and ranchos in the area. He saw the post master pace nervously up and down the serving counter behind the two girls that worked at the metal grills. There was a steady flow of town’s people and farmers going in and out depositing their savings or drawing out money, buying stamps or sending telegrams.

Walking over to the wide ledge that ran the length of the wall under the windows at the front of the building, Castillo took a form and started to pretend to fill it in. He smiled when he saw it was a request for a firearms licence; he checked that his pistol was unsnapped and ready to be drawn from its holster. He glanced out the window for a moment and saw nothing suspicious, not to worry, he thought, three girl bank robbers would be easy to spot.

0=0=0=0

“Damn!” cursed Cordelia as she brought the pick up to a halt in the middle of the street.

“What’s wrong?” Buffy looked nervously up and down the road.

“That asshole farmer’s just parked his burro right where I’d planned to stop.” Cordelia pointed at the offending animal.

“Don’t worry about it,” Buffy pointed to a spot just across the street in front of a cantina, “park there.”

0=0=0=0

Looking out of the window Castillo watched as the two nuns parked their pick-up outside the cantina, he smiled, that would spoil the sheriff’s aim. The women crossed the road towards the post office.

Thinking that this might be a bust after all, Soto was walking towards the entrance when he saw the nuns coming. He opened the door and stood to one side to let them pass before stepping out into the daylight again. His step faltered on the boardwalk as he turned slowly to look back after the nuns who were now heading towards the counter. There had been something wrong with the taller of the two. Quickly Soto re-entered the post office, his eyes swept over the taller nun starting at her head and going down to her feet.

HER FEET!

When was the last time he’d seen a nun wear high heels? Pulling his gun Soto shouted to Castillo.

“IT’S THEM!”

0=0=0=0

Smiling at the man who’d opened the door Buffy walked towards the counter; her right hand disappeared up her left sleeve ready to pull the big pistol from its hiding place. Out of the corner of her eye she noted Cordelia put her bag on the floor and open it ready to pull out the shot gun. Just as she was going to produce her own gun and start the robbery Buffy heard a cry from behind her.

“IT’S THEM!”

Turning superhumanly fast Buffy had her pistol out and held in her two hands in a fraction of a second. The world began to slow down as she brought her pistol to bear on a man in jeans who was pulling his own gun from under his denim jacket. Buffy aimed and fired before the man even had the gun free of its holster. The big heavy slug caught him in the left thigh blowing a hole you could put two fingers into right through his leg. The expression on his face turned from one of surprise to one of pain as he collapsed onto the floor.

A terrific roar caught Buffy’s attention as Cordelia fired her shotgun into the ceiling, this had the effect of making everyone hit the floor. Everyone, that is, except for the man in a rumpled suit over by the window.

“LOOOOOOOK OOOOUT!” called Buffy her voice sounding deeper and slower in her own ears, the muzzle of her pistol started to track towards the suited man as he dragged his own gun painfully slowly from its holster.

“BOOOOOM!”

Flame erupted from the muzzle of Cordelia’s shotgun as she fired her other barrel at the suited man.

Just as his stomach exploded into red he managed to get a shot off from his pistol, horrified by the effect of the shotgun, Buffy stood frozen as she watched the man fall. There was a cry from behind her and suddenly the world was moving at the proper speed again.

“Fuck! Shit!” squealed Cordelia, “I’ve been hit!”

Turning Buffy saw the blood start to seep from the wound on Cordelia’s upper left arm. Rushing over to the girl Buffy checked the wound.

“Considering what you’ve done to him,” Buffy jerked her head in the direction of the suited man, “I’d call that a scratch.”

“But what if I can never wear a sleeveless dress again?” Cordelia held her arm for a moment before starting to reload her shotgun.

“Come on,” Buffy began to pull off her nun’s habit to reveal her jeans and plead shirt that she wore underneath, “lets get out of here.”

Transferring the spare clips to her jeans while Cordelia took off her own habit and stuffed cartridges into her pocket, Buffy watched the room for danger.

“Ready?” she asked, Cordelia nodded her head, “let’s go!”

They started towards the door, as they passed the man Buffy had shot she saw him try to bring his pistol to bear on her. Placing her foot on the wrist of his gun hand she pulled the weapon from his grasp, she noticed the police badge on his belt.

“You better look after your buddy, señor,” she glanced over to where the suited cop groaned on the floor by the window.

“Looks clear,” Cordelia announced as Buffy joined her by the door she held her own and the cop’s gun in her hands.

The street was rapidly emptying as people started running for cover, Buffy’s sharp eyes searched for any sign of the local cops, there was none, however this didn’t make her feel better.

“Look you run for the pick up,” she told Cordelia, “I’ll cover you, once you get it started I’ll jump in; we head back to the cabin, collect Willow then we’re out of here, right?”

“Right!” agreed Cordelia for once not arguing.

“Go!” Buffy gave her friend a gentle shove.

Almost as soon as Cordelia’s feet touched the dusty street plumes of dust started to rise all around her as gun shots split the air. Buffy fired back with her pistols, a man tumbled from a balcony fifty metres down the street, another stumbled out from behind a parked jeep to lie in the road his blood soaking into the ground. Still more shots rang out until just as Cordelia reached the pick up she fell to the ground.

“Cordy!” yelled Buffy as she ran across the street firing wildly in every direction, she was aware of another man who fell clutching his stomach as he collapsed into the street.

“Cordy!?” Buffy skidded to a halt on her knees next to the girl, “Where are you hit?”

“I’m not hit!” Cordelia pushed away Buffy’s searching hands, “The bastards shot the heel off my shoe!”

“You were wearing heels!” Buffy asked in amazement as she helped her friend to her feet; a bullet pinged off the wing of the pick up, “To a robbery!?”

“Why not?” Cordelia pulled her door open, “One has standards, you know?”

“AAAGH!” screamed Buffy in frustration before sending a fusillade of shots up and down the street; hopefully that would keep everyone’s heads down.

Starting the engine Cordelia put her shotgun next to her leg, “Get in!” she cried.

Running around the pick up Buffy suddenly found herself come face to face with a tall man wearing a sheriff’s badge, he held a big old revolver in his right hand.

“Fill your hand, little lady,” he said slowly.

Wondering what the hell he was going on about, Buffy raised her own pistol and shot the man in his gun hand, his pistol flew into pieces as it spun through the air; the man cried out in pain and clutched at his bloody hand.

“Don’t be such a baby!” called Buffy as she jumped into the pick up next to Cordelia; she turned to her friend and said, “Drive!”

The pick up shot off down the street in a cloud of dust.

0=0=0=0

Leading his little convoy, Lieutenant Sancho Pena of the 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, watched as the dusty landscape rolled past his five armoured carriers. They’d spent the last week chasing Chumash insurgents up in the hills and now they were heading home. Seeing the little town ahead of him he glanced at his map, Lake Isabella it read. He nodded to himself maybe it would be a good place to call a short halt before heading back to barracks. Driving into the town’s main street chaos greeted the Lieutenant’s eyes. People rushed about tending to injured men lying in the street. Pena could pick out a doctor hurrying between casualties, there was even an ambulance parked across the road.

“What the hell happened here,” he asked his driver.

“No idea, sir,” replied the man, “shall I halt?”

“Yes, yes,” Pena stood up in his seat and signalled his other vehicles to halt; “Who’s in charge here?” he called.

A tall man in a sheriff’s shirt clutching a roughly bandaged hand ran slowly over to the Lieutenant’s carrier.

“Glad you’re here Lieutenant,” the sheriff said slowly, “bandido’s tried to rob the post office, shot up my deputies and the town pretty good.”

“How many?” Pena reached for his rifle.

“Two,” replied the sheriff flatly.

“TWO!” exclaimed Pena; two bandidos did this? The sheriff must be incompetent.

“Los tres bandidas de la muchacha,” explained the sheriff seeing the look in the soldier’s eyes.

“Los tres bandidas de la muchacha!” gasped Pena as his men within earshot started to mutter amongst themselves, “Where?”

“We think they’re hold up in the resort on the north edge of town,” the sheriff pointed along the street.

“Have you a man to guide us?” the officer asked.

0=0=0=0

“What the hell happened?” Willow ripped the sleeve from Cordelia’s shirt and examined the wound.

“They were waiting for us,” Buffy frantically started to reload clips from a box of spare rounds.

“Do you think it’ll scar?” asked Cordelia as she tried to see what damage had been inflicted on her arm.

“How?” Willow asked Buffy, “Yes,” she told Cordelia, “but not too much,” she started to wrap a dressing around the girl’s injured arm.

“I don’t know,” Buffy rushed over to the window and looked out being careful not to expose herself, “luck maybe, crap! How am I supposed to know?”

Going back to reloading Buffy tried to calm herself, panicking wasn’t going to help.

“Look,” Willow tied off the bandage, “we better get outta here head further into the hills, maybe head into Indian Territory.”

“Yeah you’re right,” Buffy started to hand out spare guns and ammunition, “lets get over the border that way we can rest up and heal up without having to worry about the Policía Federal.”

Picking up a pistol Cordelia joined Buffy as she looked out the window.

“Who were those guys in the post office?” she asked quietly.

“Don’t know,” Buffy shrugged, “cops from Valle del Sol maybe?”

“Thank god for that,” Cordelia grinned, “for a moment I thought they might be Federalas.”

“Yeah,” giggled Buffy, “then we’d be in real trouble!”

0=0=0=0

Halting his vehicles behind a stand of low trees, Lieutenant Pena had his men dismount after a quick weapons check. He led his troops towards what the locals referred to as ‘the resort’; a collection of small holiday cabins that overlooked the lake. Pena ran behind the deputy who was acting as guide. When the cabins came into view he signalled his men to stop; he got out his map and glanced at it. Calling forward his platoon sergeant he gave the man rapid orders.

“Take first squad round the back of the cabin here,” he pointed to the cabin the resort manager had earlier told them was the only one occupied. “take one of the Browning’s with you; set up in this brush and cover the rear. I’ll lead the assault from the front here,” again Pena pointed at the map, “you have five minutes…go!”

With a curt nod the sergeant led his squad and one of the two Browning machine gun teams off towards the rear of the cabin. Waving his remaining men forward Pena moved out to take position in a dry ditch twenty metres in front of the cabin. Pena was confident that he’d get into position before the bandidas noticed his men. All his troopers were professionals, fresh from fighting the Chumash. Three girl bandits would be easy compared to the Indians.

0=0=0=0

“Hurry you guys,” Cordelia called from the window, “I thought I saw something move.”

“Where?” Buffy was instantly by her side.

“Its gone now,” Cordelia sighed.

Watching the dry brush and grass that surrounded the cabin Buffy saw nothing, maybe Cordy had seen a bird or a rabbit or something.

“Okay girls,” Buffy watched her friends for any sign of panic and saw none, “Cordy, you run for the pick up while I help Willow, okay?”

There were answering nods from the two girls.

“Right then lets go!” Buffy pulled the door open and waited while Cordelia started to run towards the pick up; she put her arm around Willow’s waste and followed Cordy out the door.

0=0=0=0

Lying in the shallow ditch Pena watched as his men spread out on either side of him, impatiently he waited for the machine gun team to set up their weapon. Satisfied that all was ready he picked up his own rifle and sighted it on the cabin door.

“No one fires until I give the order,” he called softly and listened as the order was repeated down the line by his team leaders.

A noise from the cabin drew his attention and he saw the door being pulled open. A moment later he watched as a tall, attractive, dark haired girl started from the door and headed towards the pick up in the parking lot at an easy trot. A second later a short blonde girl appeared in the door helping her red headed friend towards the pick up.

He sighted his rifle on the lead girl; just a moment more, wait until they’re all out in the open. His finger started to take up the tension on his trigger as he filled his lungs ready to shout the order…

“FUEGO!” the sound of rifle and machine gun fire rolled across the parking lot.

As the firing died out and the smoke and dust started to settle, Pena stood up and climbed out of the ditch. He looked across the bullet scared parking lot to the pock marked walls of the cabin; he turned to look back at his men as they too climbed slowly out of the ditch.

“God forgive me,” Lieutenant Pena almost sobbed as he looked down at the three bullet riddled bodies; blood oozed from multiple gunshot wounds to stain the girl's clothes, he looked at the pregnant redhead as she lay next her friends, “what have I done?”

“You had no choice Lieutenant,” Pena's platoon sergeant told him, “if we didn't stop them here who knows what they would have done?”

“I know, but...” Lieutenant Pena turned away and started to walk slowly back to where the platoon's carriers waited.

The End.

**Author's note:** This story has been on my computer unposted for several years now. There was going to be another story that would have wrapped everything up. Unfortunately I never got around to writing it and now I have to admit that it probably never will, which is why I'm posting this now.

I sorry but you'll have to guess what happened next; did Mr K-Cops ever get picked up? Will Detective Suto bring Cardinal Higgins to book? Are the Three Girl Bandits really dead? Its really up to your imagination.

Thank-you for reading,

Steeleye.


End file.
